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Wondering why Matt’s Coffee is sometimes missing labels?

27 January, 2012 in Boston University Bridge (BUB), Brand, City Hall (GOV), Customers, Design, Environmental, Greenway (DWY), HUB, Harvard Square, Location, Longwood Medical (LMA), MIT, Menu, Operations, Packaging, Suppliers, Team by ayr | No comments

Matt just stopped in. Matt, of Matt’s Coffee. We found his coffee in 2010 and got around to visiting him this past summer. He uses the wood-fired roaster you might have heard us talk about.

While here he said: “I didn’t realize you show my bags like that! I’m going to have to be more careful on the labels.” If you frequent HSQ you may have noticed bags with funny label placement, or no label at all. Matt says he makes the labels on his laser printer, but that his house is a long drive from his roaster. So if he forgets a label here or there he just pulls out the old sharpie (something we’re all too familiar with). We love the sharpies bags, but I think Matt is going to try to send us more “official” bags in the future.

Coffee and donuts events

27 January, 2012 in Boston University Bridge (BUB), Customers, Greenway (DWY), HUB, Harvard Square, Location, Longwood Medical (LMA), MIT by lucia | No comments

We had a little coffee and donuts event this morning at LMA. We fried up cider donuts and gave them away to anyone who bought a coffee.

We’re thinking of making these a regular thing. Well, sort of. You’ll never see donuts on the menu every day (sorry, Dustin). But maybe one day per week per Clover location? Could be fun. And it would give us an excuse to taste coffee with you on a regular basis.

What do you think? Any customers want to suggest a weekly day/time for donuts and coffee at their Clover location?

Sanitation booklet

27 January, 2012 in Cleaning by megan | No comments

Don’t worry, Lucia’s just pretending.

Ayr and I have been thinking about how to train folks on safety and sanitation. I just finished putting together a sanitation handbook that managers can keep at their locations and go over with new hires. Version 1 of the handbook covers some basics of Serv-Safe, including hand-washing, proper uniform, tasting versus eating, and the proper time to change gloves.

Pickles for all

27 January, 2012 in Brand, Design, Menu, Team by ayr | No comments

Everybody loves pickles. That’s Violet trying to make a grab. She’s only 8 months, so it probably wouldn’t be as good an idea as she might be thinking.

The grape pickles are the ones everybody is loving. Sort of a funny thing, right? Grapes, pickled? They’re a little salty, a little sour. Really yummy.

Stop by Grillos, next door to the HUB. Buy some for yourself.

Linda

26 January, 2012 in Customers, Location, Longwood Medical (LMA), Team by sara | No comments

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This is Linda. If you can’t read her shirt, it says “FedEx.” She drives a big truck and delivers goodies – that might be why we get along so well.

Linda has been a customer at LMA since we first opened up a few months ago. She is working her way through the menu (and as you can see, she is pretty excited about it).

If you’re Linda, or you’re another LMA customer, check @cloverLMA around 9am tomorrow. We’ll be doing a little coffee and donuts event. $2 coffee, $0 donut, til they run out.

Press for Grillo

25 January, 2012 in Boston University Bridge (BUB), Brand, City Hall (GOV), Design, Greenway (DWY), HUB, Harvard Square, Location, Longwood Medical (LMA), MIT, Operations by ayr | No comments

Those of you who have been with us for a while know that we don’t post about our own press. But what’s to say we shouldn’t post about other folk’s press? Grillo’s has been tearing it up: Bostonian, Stuff, Globe.

We couldn’t be more excited for Travis of Grillo’s who is operating at our new rotating space. If you haven’t been by it’s a 150 sq. ft. spot next to our HUB. Our plan is someday to rent it by the day as something like an incubator. We’re calling it the “bakery” internally, the rule is going to be that it’s only for people who are making things. Food, bikes, clothes.

Grillo’s is kicking it off, which means we’re having killer pickles at my house every night. So far I’ve brought home the Jicama and Carrots, the whole carrots, mustard pickles, regular Italian pickles, grapes, grapes, did I mention the grapes? If you haven’t had them, they’re awesome. Stop by. 7 days. 11am or so – 7pm or so.

First ever mac and cheese

25 January, 2012 in Customers, Menu by lucia | No comments

This is Paul eating his first mac and cheese. Not his first mac and cheese from Clover, but his first mac and cheese ever.

I was writing up the menu board. Paul noticed the mac and cheese we’ve been running as a 3pm special and came into the store. He said he wanted to try it, since he’d never had mac and cheese.

Turns out nobody eats it in Finland. I told Paul now that he’s had this, he needs to suggest a 3pm special inspired by something he grew up eating.

New employee handbook

25 January, 2012 in Team by ayr | No comments

New edition of the employee handbook. We fixed some mistakes you all pointed out. Some of you have very sharp eyes, thanks!

We also made a pretty major change to the way we’re compensating managers. I’m really excited about the change, it brings us closer to the ideal of having managers feeling that they are “running their own little business.” Instead of a bonus that is based on a scorecard that tracks your performance managers are going to earn a share of the profit they generate at their location. Specifically, we’re setting the profit sharing at 20% for trucks, 10% for restaurants. That means that if your restaurant earns a 4-wall profit of $200,000 in a given year the manager would be eligible for a $40,000 bonus! The best thing is that I’d be thrilled to write the check because that person would have done amazing things for us.

It’s simple, easy to communicate, easy for managers to track. I’m really excited to see how this works for us all this coming year.

Coffee and donuts at LMA: Friday 1/27

25 January, 2012 in Customers, Location, Longwood Medical (LMA) by sara | No comments

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Here is a picture of Jeff from LMA’s very first coffee event back in September. He is drinking Counter Culture coffee and eating his free apple cider donut.

School is back and we thought we should celebrate with something really special. We’ll be frying these up twice during the day.

Coffee and Donuts

$2 coffee, $0 apple cider donut

Friday 1/27, Clover LMA (Blackfan and Louis Pasteur).

9-10am and 4-5pm.

Where would you like to see Clover?

24 January, 2012 in Construction, Customers, Design, Location by ayr | 15 comments

I’m heavy into the process of finding our next spots. It’s really exciting and frustrating at the same time. This time we’re focused primarily on small restaurant spaces (< 1,500 sq ft.) in Boston and surrounding areas (including suburbs). We’re doing a couple of new trucks, but the focus is going to be on restaurants.

Have a spot you would like to see a Clover? Tell us where we should be and why. The more specific the better.

Retail Wall v.2

23 January, 2012 in Design, Menu, Operations, Packaging, Team by ayr | 2 comments

Retail wall #1 was pretty much a failure. I had this idea of creating a 3-D version of a menu board. Thought that would be really fun. It breaks some retailing rules: people like to buy when things are heavily merchandised (big piles of stuff to sell, all over). The sparse display/ limited inventory typically doesn’t work that well. People generally like descriptions of new products. We had none. I knew these might be obstacles, but I thought we’d give it a try.

Well, it didn’t work. We sold a few T-shirts, a few bulk-coffees, a few filters. But nothing near what I think we’re capable of. So this is version 2 of the retail wall. This time we have a brand new idea-paint wall (I spent too much time learning how to skim-coat the brick wall to make this wall). New items, new prices, and new descriptions. Let us know what you think. I’m going to play around with product up there (as easy to change as pulling out a dry-erase marker). Better packing (e.g., moving from delis to paper bags for bulk coffee sales). If this doesn’t work we’ll have to get more normal with our retailing in the next version.

Clover training

23 January, 2012 in Team, Training by ayr | No comments

Megan and I are thinking about how we should be training at Clover. You could argue that we do this well. We’ve trained over 200 people in the past 12 months, and quality has been improving. But I think we’re far short of our potential.

We want training to be fast and efficient. Basically not take a ton of time from our managers. And we want the results to be high quality. I’d like more confidence 12 months from now that when I ask you if you sandwich was good that you will say “I LOVED it.”

I’ve been thinking for a long time that proper training will be multi-media. This is our initial sketch. I think the multi-media will help make sure we’re aligned with people who have a variety of learning styles. It will also allow us to choose the medium that is most appropriate for a given job. I can’t wait to see this evolve. We’ll share our progress and failures.

Cauliflower sandwich v.3

23 January, 2012 in Menu by rolando | No comments

OK, on to version #3 of the cauliflower sandwich. Version #2 was way more popular than version #1. Couple issues we were trying to solve with the final version–

1.) Eggplant spread was watery. So, instead of roasting the eggplant and blending, we’re splitting it, roasting it, then allowing it to drain overnight (which removes lots of liquid). Here’s Will, scraping the eggplant to drain. I also made a red onion marmalade to make the spread sort of sweet & sour.

2.) Cooking the cauliflower broke down the florets into really small pieces. We are butchering the cauliflower differently, focusing on isolating the florets into larger pieces.

3.) Finally, we are adding a little more pickled carrots to the napa cabbage.

Let us know how you like the latest version. It’ll be on the menu for another week or so before we move to the next seasonal sandwich…

Knife skills at the MIT truck – round 2

23 January, 2012 in MIT, Team by lucia | No comments

Thursday Rolando taught a little knife skills class at the MIT truck. We had a great time.

Some of you may remember our first attempt at this last year. I kept telling Ayr there’s no way folks would show up for a class outside in the middle of January. I was totally proven wrong.

So this year we opened up two sessions. We’ll be teaching knife skills again this Thursday 1/26, from 3:30pm-4:30pm. We’ll cover: how to cut an onion without it falling apart, how to modify your cut based on what you’re planning to cook, how to butcher a squash, and the best way to destroy your knife.

Cambridge Trust

22 January, 2012 in Customers, Team by lucia | No comments

This is Cate with some of her favorite customers. We started banking at Cambridge Trust last fall after getting fed up with our other bank. When I first met Nellie (the teller on the left), I didn’t think she liked me very much. I was kind of messy at making deposits. She trained me on how to make neat rubber-banded bundles.

They know us really well now. They ask us how Ayr’s baby is doing, bring Cate and me chocolate for the holidays, and never cease to give Vincenzo a hard time, I think it has to do with him wanting to use their bathroom and they’re not allowed to let him.

HVAC down

21 January, 2012 in Harvard Square by Chris | No comments

Sunday the front HVAC unit wasn’t working and it was a bone-chilling 9 degrees outside. We couldn’t get a repair guy to come out since it was a holiday on Monday, so I decided to take a look at it. Whenever I’m about to do something I always grab somebody to help out and try to turn it into a learning experience, so they can do it the next time. Becca (one of the assistant managers at HSQ) had never been on the roof before, so I brought her up and showed her our HVAC units and our condenser for the walk-in.

We discovered a couple of things. 1.) The filters to each unit needed to be cleaned and 2.) the HVAC was on and producing heat, but the fan wasn’t turning to bringing air inside the space (a fix that’s out of my league).

Cambridge inspectional services

20 January, 2012 in Greenway (DWY), Licensing, Operations by Vincenzo | No comments

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It’s 7am here in Cambridge, and what could be better than a parking spot right at the front door of Inspectional Services? My biggest task this winter was to ensure all 5 trucks get oil changes, repairs, and upgrades. We do some shuffling around of trucks so that this can happen.

Our plan is to park the (very warm) GOV truck at Dewey, and park the (pretty warm) Dewey truck at MIT. Problem is, the Dewey truck was built to Boston specifications, and we want to park it in Cambridge. So here I am getting the Dewey truck inspected to see if it fits to Cambridge specifications.

First morning without wheels

20 January, 2012 in Hub, Location, Training by Sandy | No comments

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Sandy here. This is what morning looks like at the HUB. I don’t think that this picture quite captures my nerves on my first day there. I just transferred from the DWY truck where I’d been for a year.

I was opening the restaurant alone. I had no idea where anything was. Somehow I pulled through, got breakfast ready and opened on time. The menu didn’t get written until later and I think I sent the opening tweet from @cloverHUB 2.5 hours late, but there’s one thing I learned, if you dive in head first, things aren’t as bad as they seem on the surface. And now I know where brown sugar is kept…

A happy whoopie pie

19 January, 2012 in Customers, Harvard Square, Menu by lucia | No comments

Guinevere had been anticipating the first whoopie pie of last Friday. There was a lot of build-up. She and her dad tried our whoopie pies this summer. She hated her blueberry whoopie pie. Her dad told me she had started to cry about it.

We’ve gone back to basics with whoopie pies. We’re making sure we have the recipe perfect (chocolate cake, cream filling) before we dive into making special flavors. We’ll have these tomorrow night at the Harvard restaurant (7 Holyoke).

STOP!

19 January, 2012 in HUB, Operations by Chris | No comments

We get fresh pita delivered to us 3-4 times a week. When we get a delivery, all the bread currently in the walk-in gets pushed down to the left and the new bread is loaded on the right. The idea is to maintain FIFO (first in, first out) so you’re never being served old bread. If you’ve been with us a while you know we’ve fallen down on that 1 or 2 times.

We’re hiring and training a lot of people. Most people would pull bread from anywhere without thinking about it, so we took the guess-work out of it. Every time bread comes in, we put a big red sign on top of the stack with a stop sign on it. There’s a laminated paper taped on top so we can write the date it was received with a dry erase marker.

The only stack you pull from is the one WITHOUT a big red stop sign!

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