Yep, that’s a customer taking orders for us. And no, that’s not normal for Clover. Rewind to 24 hours before this picture. I got a call from Ayr Monday. We had a manager quit. I’d be managing the Watertown truck. I admit, I was excited. I haven’t managed a truck since 2011 when I used to run dinners at MIT. I had visions of trivia questions on whiteboards, lemonade tastings, a beautiful truck surrounded by happy customers.

Then I got scared. I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to light the fryer. I asked Manlio to show me how. I even took a video on my iPhone of how to do it. Tuesday dawned. My video didn’t play. I had to call Ayr and have him walk me through it.

I hadn’t budgeted enough time to pack the truck at the HUB. So when Megan (who had graciously accompanied me to help with driving the truck) and I finally pulled into Watertown, we were 45 minutes late, and all the staff had gone home! But there was a line of 25-30 people just waiting for us, smiling!

If you’ve been to Watertown you know there’s another food source pretty nearby. All those folks could have gone there. I opened the window, and promised 2 weeks of free sandwiches for whoever would help us by taking orders. Nobody raised their hand. We furiously started prepping for lunch. Then I got a knock on the truck door.

Clara (pictured here) volunteered to help us. She was here with her mom. She took orders til her food was ready. Then Elise from Athena Health stepped up and took orders. That Tuesday at Watertown was a financial disaster. We made a few hundred dollars. The credit card system wasn’t up, so we took a handful of IOU’s. I can guarantee we’ll never have a day like that again. We have a wonderful new chef/manager at that site, who’s doing a much better job than me. I’ll be back at Watertown today, doing something I’m much better at: order-taker training. Come on out and say hi. I won’t make you work for your lunch.