New Grocerant Hits the Streets of New York

Café Clover, a small 62-seat West Village restauran, located at New York’s 10 Downing Street, has added an almost 1,000-square-foot grocery store named Clover Grocery. The restaurant specializes in seasonal, local, healthy  -- and according to its website – delicious foods. The menu includes Sprouted Grain Risotto, Teff Pappardelle, Goffle Road Farms Grilled Baby Chicken, and even a “steak” made from cauliflower. 

Many of which will be sold in the store, as prepared foods to go or ingredients to make yourself, along with other items used in the restaurant, including seed crackers – but not limited to just restaurant offerings. Clover is curating with variety, and according to an interview in the New York Post, it will be limiting its offerings to just one or two items in each category, adding that  it“wanted to take the guesswork out of health-conscious shopping.” 

Here's an excerpt from the Post’s interview with partner Kyle Hotchkiss Carone: “Clover Grocery isn’t a typical store. You don’t know if you should read the book on grocery stores or the book on fashion retail. It’s meant to be shopped in a number of ways — and there were a lot of challenges in understanding how customers would make their way through. After a while, I had to give up on any preconceived notion of what food retail is meant to be, or how things are supposed to be organized, and go with gut instinct. I’d ask myself, 'How do I want to shop in this space?' Now, we have a produce table at the entrance, with grocery items off to one side, and home and beauty items off to another, with a mezzanine in the back where patrons can get juices and prepared foods.” 

It’s people like Carone who will lead us into the next generation of food retail. There are plans to open additional Clover Grocery stores soon in New York and Philadelphia.