Clover Food Lab

Time for the BBQ. This sandwich is a funny one. We didn’t bring it into the line-up out of the gate. It was the last of the regular sandwiches to hit the street. Rolando was pressing me, “what else, what other sandwiches?” Part of what has worked so well for the two of us is that I’m vegetarian, he’s not. We both love food. So I have a history of trying to make food I love to eat that doesn’t have any meat. Some of you have tried this. It takes some creativity and a spirit of adventure. Rolando has a meaty palette. He was able to taste stuff I gave him and say “yuck,” or “with some changes this might work.” Then of course he would work some of his magic, scale it up, and bingo.

One of the sandwiches I’ve always loved to make at home is a seitan sandwich. There is some store-bought seitan in a Teriyaki sauce that I’d throw into a pan, brown, then add caramelized onions and melt cheddar cheese. I’d add the best tomatoes I could find and it was a meal.

(keep reading for the rest of the story, and nutritionals)

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If you don’t recognize that address you’re clearly not initiated into the wonders of the foodservice industry in Boston. This is where Boston Inspectional Services lives.

Some of you may remember our frustrating experience with that office last summer. You can search old post entries for more details, but the short version is this: we wanted to serve to the people of Boston last summer on weekends.

I went over to 1010 and wrote a check, then another check, and then another check. Then they inspected the truck and told me I needed a full ansul (fire suppression) system for the hood. So I went ahead and had that installed at significant cost (something like $5k). I went back to have it inspected to be told by fire that they didn’t want to inspect my truck, the guy in charge there actually asked me who would have told me to do such a thing. OK. Frustrating, but at least we can operate now, right?

(more after the break)

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I got a hilarious email earlier today from “Action Marketing Group.” I’m including it after the break for those curious. But the punchline is that they want to make Clover into some sort of mobile TV promotional something for 2 weeks in June. The image above was included in the pitch as an example. Can you imagine? On the other hand, could be an alternative fund raising activity if our loans don’t go through : ) More after the break.

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Those stories on the radio and in the papers have new meaning. I have some news from the front lines of small businesses looking for loans.

Bank of America told me flatly absolutely no lending to any business less than 2 years old. Of course this seems ridiculous. I mean, any new company, any entrepreneur trying to hire folks and build out of this mess we’re in is going to be running a company less than 2 years old. To be clear, this is regardless of the loan type, amount, credit history of applicant, level of collateral. It just doesn’t matter, they will not consider you for any type of loan. I’m not up to date on the latest, but I think I recall Bank of America took more than a few dollars out of my pocket with that whole bail-out thing. And if I recall I think we’re offering them near zero Fed rates right now…

Cambridge Trust on the other hand is an entirely different story. First and most important they are eager to see us succeed and grow and very happy to sit down and talk about how our relationship might develop. Second, Cambridge Trust is actually willing to lend us money. We’re going to use it to help outfit the new store. It’s going to be a modest loan assuming we can work out all of the details, we’ll offer collateral, etc. But they actually want to help. Night and day.

While we like to think that you all love every sandwich equally, it’s hard to deny that the Chickpea Fritter outsells its brothers. So we thought we’d start here on the detailed sandwich nutritionals.

First, the ingredients. You all know our whole wheat pita. We make our own hummus from dried organic chickpeas. For the sandwiches we make the hummus less thick than you’d want if you were eating it straight. And as you’ve all nodoubt noticed neither Rolando nor I have any particular ethnic credibility, certainly not middle eastern. So we don’t fake it. We’ve played around with these flavors to come up with something customers like. In this case it means less garlic and less Cumin in the hummus than some may consider “authentic.” We don’t use olive oil, and we’ve cut back on tahini, mostly because these two were adding little taste and a lot of fat to the sandwich.

We add an “israeli salad” on top of the hummus. That’s a tomato and cucumber salad that we make up each morning. Diced cucumbers, diced tomatoes, a variety of spices including Za’atar, and fresh squeezed lemon juice. We then add some thin sliced pickles. We get our pickles from a place in Worcester called Regal Crown. We think they’re the best around. And we buy them whole and slice them ourselves because pickles that have been sliced before pickling just don’t have that crunch. These aren’t fermented or anything, just a very simple vinegar-y dill pickle.

On top of that bed we put our “chickpea fritters,” straight out of the fryer. They’re one of the few complicated things we make. No baking soda. No gluten.

Then come the pickled vegetables: organic carrots, red cabbage, red onions all pickled in a brine made with organic white wine vinegar and kosher salt.

Lastly we top everything with tahini mixed with lemon juice, water, and salt to make the sauce that is confusingly called “tahini.” So what does it cost you?

Calories 455 kcal

Carbohydrates 73 g

Fat 12 g

% calories from fat: 24%

Protein 15 g

Fiber 14 g

Cholesterol 0 mg

We know some of you, Leah more than any of us I think. But there are a lot of you we don’t know. And in the lunch rush we don’t always get the chance to ask you all of the questions that are on our mind.

If you came by the truck today you got a survey card. Click the link below to fill out the survey. This survey will close in 48 hours. We’ll be collecting some basic information on a monthly basis so that we can understand better who we are feeding, what we’re doing right, and what we can improve. The surveys will be designed to be short, taking no more than 5 minutes maximum.

Click here to take survey

UPDATE: Survey is closed. Thanks all. We had a response rate of something like 90%. I used to do a ton of this stuff and I’ve never ever ever seen any response rate even approach that. Anyway, thanks all for diving it, hope it wasn’t painful. We’re learning a ton from your thoughtful and honest answers and really appreciate your time. I’m expecting a bit of a line on the fries tomorrow, but we’ll be ready. We’re packing extra potatoes and making double our normal soup volumes.

I’m going to start to open this blog up to some of the other folks who’ve been making your food. I want the Clover voice to start to reflect their thoughts, and I’d love you all to get to know them better.

We’ll start off with Jeremiah. He’s actually our second Jeremiah. The other you may remember if you were eating with us over the summer, we usually call him Jerry.

This Jeremiah came to us most recently from kitchens in Switzerland. He is a graduate from Johnson & Wales (via Rolando) where he studied culinary arts and nutrition. Jeremiah is one of the taller folks working on the truck right now. He was the one dressed as a giraffe for halloween. And now Jeremiah helps me make Clover difficult for shorter folks as we’re always packing stuff up high and far away. He’s also had his share of lumps from that #@$(* rear door that knocks us all on the head.

You can thank Jeremiah for helping us push forward the breakfast menu (circulating eggs were his idea), bringing us some new soups (sweet potato) and creative garnishes (fried onion), and doing a ton of the heavy lifting back at the kitchen, literally. He’s helping us with the nutritionals working with Chris, so I’m hoping to get him to author some upcoming posts on that topic. Now that you know Jeremiah say hi next time you’re by.

I’ve just dug myself out from mountains of paperwork. W2s went out yesterday which feels great.

You know the amount of paperwork a small business has to take care of is staggering. People kept telling me I would need to hire a book keeper. I haven’t yet. One part because I don’t want to spend money on that. But if I’m honest I’ve probably made almost enough mistakes to pay for a book keeper. The more important reason to do the books myself is that I want to understand this stuff and know what is going on. I want to know how our money is spent, but I also want to know how these processes work. Too often administrative stuff is dealt with by hiring somebody to hide it. That’s how costs grow out of control.

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As you all know our pita is very important to us. We use it for every single sandwich. If we couldn’t deliver this quality of pita we would be serving Clover sandwiches on bread or something else.

When we first got started I spent a lot of time and money trying to get a local baker to make the bread we wanted. I talked to bakers and ran large custom runs at some of the local bakeries (including Iggys, Near East). We just couldn’t achieve what we were looking for. We tried importing a bread from Montreal for a while that others raved about. It just wasn’t there. People told me that Rami’s in Brookline flys bread in from Israel. I’m not sure whether this is true, but it wasn’t something we’d ever do. We get our bread from Booklyn, and that’s far enough.

Nutritionally our bread is quite different from Pita you might find in a grocery store. For one it’s whole wheat. This helps make our sandwiches more filling, and it provides you with a bunch of micronutrients and good fiber. Because they are fresh and we don’t hold them at all our bread has no preservatives. It’s also low on fat since we don’t need to use fat to make it feel moist in a grocery store. And our bread is also relatively high in protein. It’s small, so our calorie count is on the low side. Here is the summary:

EDIT: Chris, one of our longtime employees and a nutritionist, says he thinks our Pita supplier is playing games with these numbers, as most companies do. Eager to make their nutritionals look “good” folks play with the serving size number. Chris thinks our pita are on average something more like 3.5 oz per pita (not the 2.5 oz per pita listed above). You know, candy bars that are only 200 calories, but contain 3 servings in the bar. We’ll reflect this going forward. Thanks Chris for keeping this process honest.

Saturday I took my kids to see the chickens that lay eggs for Clover. We’ve been getting our eggs from Chip-in farm in Bedford, MA. They are not organic, but they are free range. We’d love to use organic eggs but have found that we can’t get organic eggs that are local and fresh. So we stick to free range from Chip-in farm. This means the chickens are packed a bit less tightly than most commercial operations and they have access to outdoor runs. They’re not roaming outside their whole lives, but it’s worlds different than large scale commercial farms. Our favorite thing about Chip-in is that you can visit the farm and see the operation for yourself, and that the eggs are ridiculously fresh.

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The IAP design class that focused on Clover packaging had their final presentation this past Friday. It was a ton of fun to walk around and see their ideas. I’m now in the position of figuring out how to make some of these real.

We focused on the sandwich. That’s because we rely heavily on the aluminum foil right now for our sandwiches and that’s going to have to go. Aluminum foil is waterproof, holds shape, and is easy to work with. But it’s not compostable.

After the break I’m going to include a few pictures of ideas students had. There was a lot of interest in non-paper materials, which was fun to see. Everything from pineapple skins to soy paper (edible) to Balsa (above).

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This picture marks the beginning of our journey to uncover Clover’s nutritionals. Yup, I’m wearing a T-shirt in the picture. For those of you who have been asking, and waiting, and asking, and patiently waiting, we’ve finally pulled this together.

As with everything at Clover these will evolve. Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing basic nutritional data for our sandwiches, soups, fries, beverages. We’ll take our time and this will give us a chance to talk about choices we’ve made, ingredients, methods, etc. It’s going to be a fun ride.

Now, for a few words about our approach to this stuff. First, we know that a bunch of you could care less: stop reading now, we’ve already wasted your time. Others have been very curious. Exactly how should I think about that egg+egg in my hand? Is it a healthy choice? We’ve been hearing these questions and more.

Our first concern is always going to be that you can’t wait to eat that sandwich in your hand. If you don’t love the food you wont eat it and the nutritional content is meaningless.

Our second concern is related to the first, we’re committed to making sure your sandwich is made from the best tasting ingredients. We think local in season food tastes better. And we think whole foods are much more filling per calorie. This is why we use whole wheat bread, tons of fresh seasonal and local vegetables, whole chickpeas, etc. It’s also why we use our own hands to make pretty much everything we sell you (with the exception of the smokey tempeh strips, but that’s another post). We think better ingredients taste better.

Only after we are satisfied that the food tastes great, and we’re happy with the ingredients, only then do we start to worry ourselves with other issues: speed, cost, unique but familiar and accessible, local economies. Ok, and somewhere in that mix “health” pops up. And we’re always striving for transparency, so obviously we had to find a way to answer your questions.

Read on for more about Clover’s nutritionals (including some cool charts I spent too much time building)

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There’s an IAP design class at MIT that’s working with Clover for one of their projects. I’m hoping it’s going to be their most memorable project of the class. But I’m not doing a great job so far. I didn’t promote the class last week (TLC edged them out), and I was late for our first meeting today. I’d gotten held up at the bank, more on that later.

Our goals for packaging are simple: least negative impact to the environment while delivering a quality experience to customers. Secondarily we’re focused on aesthetics of course.

So I thought I’d post here a quick overview of the packaging we’ve used to date, with some comments. Those who read us often know:

(a) We’re excited about the idea of eliminating trash cans from our restaurants and moving to 100% compostable packaging

(b) I’m skeptical about the environmental benefits of re-usable packaging

Keep reading after the break if you’re interested in more detail about who we’ve worked with to date:

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That is the working title for the TLC show. I’ve been struggling to remember it because it is so generic.

Thanks to all of you who came by and put up with the cameras and slighly slower service.

We’re happy about the coverage, and especially the timing. We’re working to get another truck and a restaurant open by the time this airs.

The experience was strange. More scripted than documentary. We were all repeating things until they were anything but natural and spontaneous. And there were a few things Rolando and I just couldn’t bring ourselves to say.

One of my favorite was Rolando refusing to talk about “high end techniques” we’re bringing to street food. Rolando said “no, we chop, we cut, it’s basic stuff.” We really don’t want to create mystery here. We focus on ingredients, recipes, and hard work, but avoid mystery.

some people might get a haircut or buy some new clothes for their first national TV appearance. at Clover the equivalent involves cleaning the fryer and scrubbing tight spots. Rolando sent up a handful of his students, Enzo came over, a new guy Jonathan showed up. This cleaning stuff, doing it well, is hard work. Ir’s the type of work that leaves you proud if you have the right attitude.

Expect to see a truck tomorrow that is even cleaner than usual.

And did I hear somebody say something about cupcakes?

I remember how excited I was to go through the old records, receipts, etc to try to learn a bit about the former owner and the car’s previous life.

Today I picked truck #2 up from getting the generator installed. I found this package, the truck used to be a bakery truck, ATV bakery, Reading PA (where I went to buy it).

I’m going to begin this and every post this week with a plug for Friday. we’re going to have a TV crew from TLC here filming a show that features Clover. We know you’re all going to come out, we’ll make it a good time.

So I’ve said in the past that you’ll never find egg sandwiches on Clover’s breakfast menu. Main reason: making eggs well is very hard. I just didn’t trust we could deliver the quality we would demand in a fast everyday context.

Then Jeremiah came up with the idea of using a circulating water bath to cook the eggs. These things have very precise temperature control and you set them such that the egg white cooks perfectly (not rubbery) and the yolk creamy. You can leave the eggs in for hours and they are just perfect. it’s pretty amazing.

We’re experimenting with building the sandwich. Right now a very simple sandwich is the favorite: cheddar cheese, tomato, and egg. The pita we’re using is a bit different, a smaller version of out sandwich pita. It’s all coming together beautifully. We’ll have them for sale Thursday morning. $3

This is a picture of chickpeas in the robot coupe (commercial food processor). We were making up falafel and everything else last night preparing for our first week of 2010.

Lot of activity at the truck this week:
- TLC camera crews are with us all day Friday. Want to be on TV? Mark your calendar.
- We’re going to be stepping up our breakfast options. We’re going to introduce a new breakfast sandwich. To celebrate we’ll be offering different breakfast items 1/2 price all week
- Lab testing is back for nutritionals, we’re going to start to share the results as we process them

Some of you know Julie. I don’t know her exact age, and I’m not going to guess, but she’s Clover’s adopted grandmother. She dropped this card off Wednesday for the “Clover folks.” We’re all touched.

We’ll be back open this coming Monday, the 4th. And you can catch a peak in the picture above of one of the single origin limited coffees we’ve been featuring. On Monday we’ll have a few more, and some other post-holiday surprises coming up.

We have a holiday gift for our coffee customers. Barth at Barrington has sent us 4 special coffees. These are limited editions and special single origin coffees.

We’re going to be offering a different coffee each day this week, so stay tuned. Should be a fun way to experience some very different coffees.