A LOOK AT HARVARD SQUARE: CLOVER FOOD LAB
By Emily Xie | February 1st, 2012
On 7 Holyoke Street sits a local dining destination that boasts of a cult-like following. Clover Food Labs, opened in 2010, serves an environmentally friendly menu of locally sourced items. Pioneered by MIT graduate Ayr Muir, Clover operates on a distinctive and engaging brand experience that is demonstrated in all aspects of the restaurant.
The impact of Clover is immediate upon entering the white rooms of its building: the two-storied inside is bright, fresh, and invigorating, illuminated with sunlight penetrating through the store’s vast front windows. Customers dine on long wooden tables to the sounds of crawling bass lines of the restaurant’s atmospheric music. The design strikes a balance between spare and minimalistic, yet warm. Thematically coherent, the inside becomes an all-encapsulating experience.
As Ayr Mui and I sit at the front counter of Clover, sipping tea, he elucidates Clover’s core value of transparency. “People should be able to see their food, and where it came from, and who made it—a sense of nothing hidden.”
The design cleverly literalizes Muir’s value of transparency with an indoor space that is completely open and devoid of partitions. Menu items are painted in black along the walls in honest, unassuming handwriting. At the same time, the notion of transparency is also conveyed in the way the restaurant operates. As customers enter the restaurant, they are immediately greeted by a member of staff, who smiles brightly and writes down orders. The casual, social atmosphere minimalizes the boundaries between those who work and those who dine.
“Here, inside this place, the only thing that brings color is food and the people,” Ayr notes. “Clover is built for interaction.” Indeed, with stark white walls, the restaurant becomes, in a sense, a theater intended to be activated by all the bustling customers and workers within. This makes explicit that at Clover, it is not just the service that matters, but also those who are served.
“I want the brand to convey a real New England ethos.” Ayr further points out. “A do-it-yourself ethos. A sense of ‘we-can-and-want-to-figure-things-out-ourselves.’ Self-reliance. No real fear of the unknown.” Indeed, the success of Clover’s unusual yet delicious menu items comes from a constant evolution shaped over time by devoted attention to customer input. From his very first food truck, Muir kept a keen eye on what people liked, and changed his menu accordingly. “The truck was a test venue. We transported a lot of what we learned to the actual restaurant,” Ayr states.
Transparency. Interaction. Innovation. It is no wonder Clover garners such a faithful client base. Right in Harvard Square, Clover stands as a visionary restaurant that transforms the traditional consumer experience with a clear, bold execution of their values through service, operation, and design.
