Clock Works Café

Name and management change in 2015. With Clocktower Place (the mill building complex) taken over by another company and renamed mill & main, the café also changed to Amory Maynard’s Café. Offerings slim now, but expected to improve as new tenants move into the mill.

My previous review was back in 2009. As of January 2010, The Clock Works Café has been taken over by NexDine. While the previous management was a vast improvement over their predecessor, the new management is an even bigger improvement over that!
Mike Adams communicates the weekly menus in the elevators of the buildings as well as a regular weekly e-​mail (along with some personal updates of his family and crew). Eat here enough and you’ll get to know the others on the team like Jimmy the sandwich master or Dot at the cash register.
Sometimes the dining area can be a bit cold in the winter (especially if people keep opening the door to the outside). The TVs are also permanently stuck on CNN, which is often good enough… unless you’re hoping to see something like live coverage of the Boston Marathon, Olympics, or a Red Sox day game.
The food options vary, but you can always fall back on options like pizza, the salad bar, burgers, or a sandwich if nothing else appeals to you. Prices are a bit on the high side, but that’s often worth it if you don’t want to go out in the rain or cold weather.

Mike Adams, the manager, is a HUGE asset to NexDine, and as a recipient of his regular and informative email to those of us who work in the building, I disagree completely with the other disgruntled reviewer who complained about them. If someone doesn’t want to read Mike’s email, they can delete them, but I love to know about special offerings like sushi or free samples, contests, bargain sales (I got a wreath at Christmas for ¹⁄₅ of the price anywhere else), etc. Mike and his staff work hard to provide a large variety of dishes and to feature products and foods made and grown locally. The staff are fun and friendly, all of them: Dot the cashier makes sure the coffee is always on and that Mike gets our requests, and Gretchen the red head makes the best eggs Benedict for the Friday breakfast buffet. Prices are not cheap but neither are they over expensive. Mike is also very responsive: One day I asked why they did not have Truvia (a zero calorie natural sugar substitute) and he had it there the next day. Some of the workers recommended that he try the Nutri Bullet and this week he announced that he got one and will make smoothies on demand out of ingredients we choose from the salad bar. The coffee is reasonably priced and refills are only $ 1 or bring your own cup any size and pay $ 1 There are always plenty of different options for vegetarians, carnivores, fish lovers, etc. so you can always find something you want. Yes there are other restaurants and options across the street from our complex, but I like the convenience and camaraderie of «our» Clocktower Café.

The Clock Works Café used to be run by Epicurean Feast and was pretty decent back then. They took over after the
CEO got food poisoning and ran the previous food service provider out of town. Now it’s run by Nexdine.
The café is wildly overpriced. Every single item is more expensive than it is across the street at CVS. We are also bombarded daily by Mike Adam’s inane menu emails. If you’re lucky he’ll accost you in the elevator or in a hallway and tell you all about his life and Southern Baptist religious beliefs.
Everything they offer is incredibly salty, it seems to be the only spice they own. All the soups are thin and low on filler. The salad is wildly overpriced and you have to cut out on good items like tomatoes in order to keep it under $ 10.
The problem is that it’s the most convenient place to go for most people working in the building. You can get drinks or snacks at CVS or a sandwich at Subway but it’s a lot quicker to just go downstairs and pay through the nose for mediocre food.