John Paoloca started washing dishes at 14. A few decades later, after stints as maître d', general manager, and operations director, he and Alison Kim opened Clover Harvest as what they call a passion project, which is a fair way to describe a restaurant built by someone who's worked every job in the building.
The farm-forward menu has a specific origin. After Alison's father had a stroke, his dietitian gave the family one instruction: fill up on veggies. She's cooked "veggie forward" ever since, and the kitchen now runs on more than a dozen local farms and purveyors, including Smith Farm & Table and Windy Hill Orchard & Cidery.
The building wears it on the outside, too: a painted vegetable-garden mural, a floral garden patio, a semi-enclosed porch. Inside, longtime cooks work alongside culinary students, and the restaurant runs a community garden and fundraisers for local nonprofits. It's a place where a first anniversary dinner, a Philadelphia visitor's steak and eggs, and a table of friends catching up all seem to belong.
1007 Old North Main Street, Clover. Dinner most nights, brunch Friday and Saturday, closed Tuesday and Sunday.
