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Clover Food Lab warns it could close and lay off 182 workers at Boston-area vegetarian restaurants

By
Neal Riley
Digital Producer, CBS Boston
Neal J. Riley is a digital producer for CBS Boston. He has been with WBZ-TV since 2014. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe and The San Francisco Chronicle. Neal is a graduate of Boston University.
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Neal Riley

/ CBS Boston

Clover Food Lab, a vegetarian fast food restaurant chain in the Boston area, has let the state know it may have to close and lay off 182 workers if ownership is unable to successfully to sell the business.

"Clover is expected to close on May 29, 2026 unless we secure a Buyer for the company by that date," the company said in a filing. 

The Cambridge-based company told WBZ-TV it could not comment further on the sales process.

"We are required by Massachusetts law to file a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act report in the case that we do not finalize the deal; we simply want to comply with all regulations in the case of a change of operations," the company said in a statement. "We are optimistic that Clover will continue to serve our locally sourced farm-to-table fast food in Clover's next chapter."

Clover began as a food truck on the MIT campus in 2008. It now has 11 restaurants, including one at the just-opened Eastern Edge Food Hall in Kendall Square.

Clover in 2023, writing that "COVID changed everything for restaurants like us." The company sold meal boxes during the pandemic to get by, but even when restaurants did reopen, sales remained below pre-COVID levels.

reported that Clover emerged out of bankruptcy in 2024 and even had plans to expand. The company reportedly had plans to add up to 50 more restaurants in New England over a five-year span.

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