March 31, 2015

So much Clover in 2015

IMG_4325

I’m back.

This isn’t the first time I disappeared for a while. Sorry everybody. So much is happening right now and I’ve done a terrible job making time for writing.

So much is happening right now, and that picture you see above, CloverHFI in construction, anchors that list. We have an official open date now: 22 April, 2015. That’s less than 1 month to 24 hour Clover. Less than 1 month. I’ll post a bunch on this in the coming days. In the meantime if you want to be part of this little revolution in Cambridge you can apply for a job at Clover. We have an amazing GM and Assistant-GM for the restaurant and we’re in full blown hiring mode right now.

What else? Whole Foods is on. We’re in the final stages of figuring that out. So soon you’ll be able to buy Clover at Whole Foods in the prepared foods section, and in time you might find a Clover restaurant inside a Whole Foods. Crazy, right?

We’re about to bake our own bread. Single largest improvement to food quality since we opened day 1. We bought the oven for pita making and spent 18 months (and too much money) making it OK for use in Massachusetts. This will fire up in about 1 month. More to come.

Newbury is going to happen. I know, I’ve been saying that for 3 years, but we have reason to think we’re close. A reason that looks like a building permit. Hang on.

Trucks are re-launching. Keep an eye out for a full schedule.

We’ve been invited to work with the Red Sox to kick off some street vending at Fenway. Really fun short term project.

We’re in the planning stages for a restaurant in Copley Square. Later this year.

We’re about to close a little bit of funding that was unexpected. This means we might have a truck in DC as soon as this summer. Sean, who has been coming up every week for 9 months to learn Clover can’t wait to go home and build us there.

We’re growing our team. I haven’t introduced Dave yet I don’t think, but will shortly. He’s our new VP of Operations, and he started in January. We couldn’t be happier, he’s just amazing and is going to do incredible things at Clover.

We just hired a Sr. Accountant. We’re searching for a VP of Finance. Bar is high for this hire. If you know somebody or are somebody with amazing experience at big firms and operating companies, a CPA, and love Clover let us know.

I’m just about done with a project that completely re-wrote the POS. Totally new ground up. It’s about to launch and will make Clover much better.

Some skunk-works projects I can’t really talk about because they involve others who wouldn’t want publicity yet.

So a lot is going on. I’m going to figure out how to add daily writing to the list. Seriously. It’s been too long.

Recent Posts

May 24, 2023
I recently learned that garlic has 4 stages that it goes through on its journey to become the cured stuff you’re probably used to seeing. This year I learned about Green Garlic. It’s the mild, sweet, un-cured bulb, plus the fresh green shoots. We got our hands on a super limited crop from Red Fire out in Granby, and so we decided to see if we could incorporate it into every single different type of box we make next week…
May 23, 2023
We’ve intentionally steered clear of bowls for a long time. If you see Ayr tomorrow, ask him why : ) Tomorrow (5/24) we’re starting a 2-week test of bowls at CloverNTV, our restaurant in Newtonville. If it goes well, this could represent the beginning of one of the bigger changes our menu has EVER seen. We’re hoping we’ve cracked the code to bowls that are seasonal, carefully-composed, easy to carry, and craveable – all the things we love about bowls, and none of the things we don’t.
May 18, 2023
I used to eat Cheesy Grits almost every morning, and if you were eating with us around 2017, I bet you did too. We took our Plimoth-ground-grits off the menu for a little while, but now they’re back at all locations (except for the HUB for the time being). Stop in for breakfast during the next 2 weeks – we’re aiming for these to be hot and ready at 8am and we’ll be selling them til they’re out. The staff has been waking up extra early and adding a lot of extra whisking to their mornings, so we’d love to hear what you think. If you’ve never had our Cheesy Grits before, here are some things you should know….
May 16, 2023
What is Chris eating? When we toured the field at Siena, the crew was planting dahlia tubers. They get planted in warm soil, will grow all summer and will be ready for harvest in the fall. They reminded us of sunchokes, so we got to talking about whether the tubers are edible and it turns out they are! Are they delicious?
May 15, 2023
Do you want a beautiful box of produce for a fraction of what you’d pay in the grocery store? Do you want to invest in a farm’s success and be with them throughout the harvest season? Do you think you hate eggplants but you’ve just never had a good one? It might be time to look into a CSA (or farmshare).
May 5, 2023
I remember exactly the moment we started celebrating May the 4th (“May the Force” be with you). We were on a planning call about meal boxes and we were talking about how we were going to launch our Taco Tuesday program on Cinco de Mayo (May the 5th). Chris accidentally said “May the 4th” and Ayr said, “May the 4th! We should do a Star Wars Box!”
April 24, 2023
If you’ve been reading for a while you probably know we hate waste. Most of the time, minimizing waste is pretty unglamorous, but every once in a while our mission to reduce waste takes us to some very cool places. I look after Clover’s grocery marketplaces (including our Assembly Row grocery store). A few months ago I noticed that the marketplaces were going through a lot of our paper bags. They’re compostable, which is great. But I think the best bag is one you can use over and over again.
April 22, 2023
Few people know that Clover is environmental activism. This is by design.  And it works. We do these customer surveys and see that 9 out of 10 Clover customers are NOT vegetarian. Yet I’m constantly troubled by conflicting feelings about the approach we’ve taken.
April 10, 2023
Over the next 3 weeks, on a rolling schedule, most Clovers are going to be giving out a free hot or cold George Howell Montecarlos coffee to anyone who stops in between opening and 11 am. No strings— we just want to see you all and talk about coffee!! George Howell’s Montecarlos is a single-origin coffee we love for our pour-overs…
March 30, 2023
Each year, early spring is a busy time at the Clover kitchen because we have 2 of our tastiest boxes, usually back-to-back. For the Passover box, a lot of care goes into the kashering of the kitchen, with Rabbi Dolinger coming in to ensure the box is totally Kosher for Passover via Lighthouse Kosher.
March 15, 2023
That photo is corn fritters drizzled with maple syrup. We just started frying them up for a 2pm special – and they’re an element of our Maple Meal Box. If you head away from the city this time of year, you’ll see signs for sugar shacks, where maple sap gets boiled down into syrup and little restaurants pop up to serve pancakes, corn fritters, cider donuts, and dill pickles (to cut through the sweetness of the fresh syrup).
February 28, 2023
You’ve been asking! And finally we can announce: sunchokes are here, starting tomorrow, 3/1. Thanks to Pete’s Greens in VT for getting us local sunchokes. At breakfast we’ll be making The Sunchoke Truffle: fluffy house-baked pita, creamy truffled butter, caramelized onions, a 6.5 minute egg, and thin, crispy sunchoke slices. At lunch and dinner: The Sunchoke Mushroom: scallion-black-pepper mayo, fresh arugula, roasted crimini mushrooms, fried brined onions, and roasted sunchokes. But what IS a sunchoke?