The Clover healthy fast food chain is down to five locations from 11, according to its website, with one of its two Harvard Square locations in Cambridge now being marketed to new tenants.
The storefront at 1326 Massachusetts Ave. was CloverHSQ from April 2016 until the chain’s May 28 shutdown and June 3 rescue, when it announced a reopening with “big changes.” Though late June the chain had a half-dozen locations, but the Inman Square site known as CloverHub has since closed.
As marketed by the Graffito leasing firm, the Harvard Square property has around 1,412 square feet of retail space and 350 square feet of basement storage in the heart of Harvard Square, “along one of the most trafficked corridors, directly across from the entrance to Harvard Yard and adjacent to the Smith Campus Center.” It’s also a historic space that Clover restored before opening.
The chain was founded locally by MIT and Harvard grad Ayr Muir in 2008 as a food truck. The original Harvard Square location at 7 Holyoke St. was Clover’s first brick-and-mortar, but the company relocated it around 60 feet away in 2016 to the more prominent location – discovering during renovations that original tile walls and floor were intact from the Waldorf Lunch diner, opened in 1916.
“There are pennants around the top of the space. And crimson Hs everywhere” that were retained when the Waldorf Lunch closed and became the 24-hour Bickford, Muir said in 2016. “Not only are we moving into the old Waldorf Lunch, but we might be able to restore this crazy tile work. There’s nothing else like this. It’s amazing.”
Graffito is promoting the unique architectural interior design elements as well as the draw of the square, including its 20,000 daily T riders and 67,000-person daytime population.
Clover still has a location across Harvard Yard in the Harvard Science Center, as well as restaurants in Central and Kendall squares. There are also two in Boston, in the Financial District and inside the Prudential Center.
The chain grew to 15 locations, then declared bankruptcy twice in two years. The shutdown in May came as new leader Julia Wrin Piper struggled for a business plan to keep serving vegetarian foods to nonvegetarians.
“Inflationary pressures on our industry remain an issue,” Clover said at the time of its June 3 rescue by a “mission-aligned investor” that would focus on “core” Cambridge and Boston locations. “We are now working hard on implementing operational changes to ensure the financial sustainability of Clover.”
As of Friday, the chain described itself as still being in a “reopening phase.”
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