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Clover food trucks going away

Clover Food Lab founder and CEO Ayr Muir writes he's permanently garaging his pioneering fleet of Clover food trucks, with the Dewey Square one scheduled to go out with a party on Friday.

As I look at Clover today I want to focus our attention on the restaurants. I love trucks so much, it was how I started. But they add a lot of daily complexity. We’ll be a better company if we’re more streamlined and more focused.

H/t Boston Restaurant Talk.

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Comments

Nooooooooooooooooo!

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.. the only food trucks I patronize. Their food is delicious and healthy and they gave me a free popover once!
Sorry to see them go but they don't take cash which is really unfair to those who can't afford anything other than the cash economy.

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They seem to be in areas near where the trucks were active.

Some of them have cheap beer, too.

I bet they keep a couple trucks running for festivals and such.

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Yes, the posting notes they will maintain a truck for catering\events.

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It's not exactly a cheap eats place so this seems like an unlikely complaint...

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Are you saying low income folks don't want or deserve healthy food?

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Serious question, what do you mean by :

... they don't take cash which is really unfair to those who can't afford anything other than the cash economy.

?

I don't get it.

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You have to pay by credit or debit card or other means.
If you don't have a credit card, bank account or a smart phone - and there are many people like that in Dewey Square - you can't buy food.
I understand it's actually illegal to refuse to take cash payment. But it's done more and more.

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It's pretty easy to get a debit card, right?

I can name you plenty of banks that don't charge a service fee. No min balance, free debit card, etc. Some even pay you to bank there (which is a glorious change from the days when they all charged fees).

Even if one eschewed banks altogether there are plenty of ways to get prepaid debit cards (which can be used as credit cards).

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From a business point of view it makes a lot of sense. Food Trucks do not make nearly as much as people assume they would. The larger a business becomes and the higher the pyramid goes the more the food truck becomes a problem.

For starters it is very rare to have a dedicated spot that is yours to keep "forever" , in some spots you can get a year or two guarantee but if you are building a real brand people want to know where you are. Especially if you are making every day food as opposed to some cool thing I wouldn't want to eat every day. There is a reason why you rarely see major companies sporting food trucks and why food trucks tend to be dominated by indie people and newcomers.

Clover simply got too big and the ownership got farther and farther away from the trucks. The money made was being sent in too many directions. They made a wise choice to scale down to their brick and mortars , where now that they are a known entity they are going to be ok.

This is good news for other newcomers to the market as it removes a major competitor from the streets and opens up the spaces they used to occupy. It also leaves an opening for people selling similar products to move into those territories.

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Wow, I was seriously out of touch with how many Clover restaurants had opened, which makes the announcement about closing the trucks less shocking. I will miss the Newbury St truck, but Ayr Muir notes that all of the truck employees are moving to other positions within Clover.

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I'll miss the scent of their rosemary fries wafting through Dewey.

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They have a location right at High and Federal. Plenty to smell there!

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