Sample of Profile:
Clover’s Ayr Muir wants Omnivores to Dream About Vegetables
In 2008, Ayr Muir started a different kind of revolution in Boston, armed with a food truck, and science and business degrees from MIT and Harvard. His weapon was a flair for creating tasty, seasonal food quickly, and his bet on Clover Food Lab has paid off tremendously. Muir wants you to associate Clover Food Lab with delicious fast food with fresh, seasonal flavors so everyone will want to eat there, so he avoids using the word vegetarian.
Recently I met up with him at his Cambridge restaurant for an interview. Muir, 40, is a distant cousin to John Muir. He stands around 6 feet with a boyish head of brunette hair, confident smile, and casual look of jeans and an untucked shirt. He’s the CEO who’s accessible to his clients and employees. Muir proudly states, “9 out of 10 customers are not vegetarian. I don’t know of any other plant oriented restaurant like us. All of our work is to swap out meals and to get people who love meat to eat a meal without it. If we serve you unforgettable vegetables and you start dreaming about them, together we make the world a better place.” Today Clover Food Lab has blossomed into an empire of 12 restaurants in Massachusetts, and he hopes to spread his progressive restaurants across the country.
Despite his philosophy, Muir demonstrates the conscious management of a small chain of fast food restaurants. When he learned that the meat industry is the No. 3 global contributors to greenhouse gas emission, he became inspired. “I never thought about food being an environmental choice,” Muir said. “It was an awakening for me.” He sources Clover’s food from New England organic farmers, “I grew up in a small town where we walked to the dairy to buy our milk. I remember walking between the cows on the way to find the dairy farmer.” Muir lives with his wife and two children in pastoral Lincoln where he has personal relationships with some of Clover’s farmers plus he offers his customers a chance to join their CSAs. He says, “We are the only local casual fast restaurant that is sourcing 80-90% of our food from local organic farms in the summer and fall months and 40% again by April .” Driven by the desire to do the right thing, he makes sure his to-go food packaging has the lowest impact possible, and is compostable with very little material used, and little waste.
So where did Ayr Muir find all of his passion for seasonal, tasty food? He reminisced about his childhood. “My parents went to a Co-Op in Brattleboro for groceries. The folks who ran the general store in the middle of our town had a huge rhubarb plant, and when it was in season, the old lady would say pick some rhubarb. We didn’t eat out, and my Dad cooked every meal right out of our garden. My Mom made dessert.” So Clover’s meals taste like they just came from the garden and there are lovely homemade sweet treats like cardamom apple/pear muffins at the Clover Cafe at Harvard . . . just like home.
I observed Muir at a Food Development Meeting that Clover holds each Tuesday at their Cambridge Food Lab where they encourage the public to “Bring Us your Recipes!” He ducked into the meeting on the day Hurricane Florence brought a tropical storm to New England, but he exuded the epitome of calm, Zen-like quality of being serenely present and fully attentive. Muir let his employees control the meeting, and he observed the presentation of new recipes of a buffalo mushroom sandwich, a sweet mushroom sandwich, plus a crunchy green bean side by a variety of chefs in an engaged yet respectful manner. He didn’t push his agenda, a sign of a great boss who gives the floor to his employees, encourages their creativity, and creates the space for a collaborative company where people enjoy working. And that trickles down to the customer. He also encourages customers to “Talk to us honestly about your meal” and “Tell your friends about Clover!” Things do go wrong at Clover, and he takes responsibility. They offered 2008 prices at their restaurants on their 10th anniversary this year, people had to wait in long lines, and the food delivery was slow. He wrote to his customers to apologize.
A friend and I visited another one of Muir’s restaurants in Downtown Boston, and we realized that we had entered the future. This Clover Food Lab felt like a Millennial Generation, fast food restaurant that dared to have an informative yet quirky personality. We were intrigued. Text messages pepper the white walls of their Mission Statement, funny quips about a new alternative meat substitute called Impossible Meatballs - “Betta than my motha’s f$# balls . . .” and photos of phone texts about people's likes or dislikes of Impossible burgers. “It looks like a burger, cooks like a burger, bleeds like a burger.” Many people post notes on their bulletin board with the headline “Tell us what you this.” Muir wants to know the good and the bad. In Defense of Food author, Michael Pollan did in a PBS Special while eating an Impossible Burger at Clover. He couldn’t tell the difference between meat and the Impossible Burger! Pollan said, “We need to reduce our meat consumption, and this is one strategy to do it. This restaurant (Clover) has been doing it long before they had a meat-like product with great success. I think that millennials' attitudes towards meat eating are changing a lot.” Tasty organic food is a massive revelation for fast food. Avid customer, Julia said, “Everything about Clover is satisfying - the way the food is sourced, spiced, and served. It’s addictive.”
Muir has hired mostly millennial employees who come from behind the counter to talk to you in front of the Digital Menu Board Media Player that they can manipulate. They are happy to explain the Impossible Burger and their tried and true seasonal meals. One employee took his time to reveal the shelves of the food sourced from their purveyors like Maine Grains, Hong Fong Foods Sriracha Sauce, and George Howell coffee. They realize they are well-paid ambassadors of a food revolution and there is honor in working for a progressive company. Muir gazed over his Cambridge restaurant and Food Development Kitchen and said, “Our restaurant is always evolving. We look different than we did a year ago and I imagine that in another year, we will look very different from today.”
