Yesterday, a video shot this summer was posted by an online prankster who bought a Soy BLT sandwich at Clover, put a chicken cutlet on the sandwich himself, then approached one of our team members to complain, claiming the restaurant served him chicken.

Our employees were very confused and one employee got very upset. The situation escalated when the internet prankster asked for $100 in return for not posting the video online.

First, I want to spotlight what a difficult situation this was for our team. All of our employees strive to create great food experiences for our customers, and they knew there was no way this came from our kitchen. We are committed to full transparency with 100% of our ingredients, and no meat is ever present in our restaurants. The video is cut to remove all context and back-and-forth conversation after this accusation.

It’s clear the online prankster was looking to antagonize, and he was successful: one of our employees lost his temper, yelling swears and moving to approach the customer.

This was not the right reaction, even though it was coming from a place of understandable frustration, particularly at the personal extortion attempt. 

Across Clover, our front-line workers serve thousands of customers a day. It is a fulfilling job, but also a stressful and tiring job. The actions of an internet troll put these team members in a difficult, unfair situation. We are sorry for this one employee’s reaction, and also regret the toxic situation this “content-creator” put them in.

We strive to create a culture of respect and fun in our restaurants. Sadly the real world can intrude unexpectedly, as it did here. Out of this experience, we will be coaching our employees on how to calmly and respectfully handle situations like this in the future.

And we want to thank the many of our supporters who understand that respect is a two-way street.