A 💌 from Irene: The next five years
Hello Mei Mei family! We’ve got some big changes coming up, so here’s the littlest Mei Mei to tell you all about them. Drumroll please…
The last year has been one of huge transitions and growth for Mei Mei, and for our family. We opened our books to our team and launched profit sharing with Rethink Restaurants. Andy opened The Beer Mobile. Mei moved to ATL and just finished writing the Mei Mei cookbook, which will be published by Roost Books in early 2019! I’m taking over operations from the sibling team, and getting married in May. We also renewed our lease on our Park Drive space. As I write this, it’s been almost five years since we first signed on to our cozy spot on BU’s South Campus. Hard to believe. As we look towards the future, towards future expansion and deeper community building work, we’re making some more changes to how things work in our business.
As our guests, you’ll notice two major changes:
1. We’ve created a brand new restaurant menu that will be served counter-service style all day.
Our space will be as bright and cheery as ever, and as always, our ingredients will be among the best and most ethical you can find. We’re sad to say goodbye to dinner service as we’ve known it, but we’re excited to have a consistently casual service that can accommodate more diners with different diets and budgets. We’re also refocusing on vegetables, smaller plates, and scallion pancake sandwiches, and we know you’ll find something you love. We believe that food, done right, can and should nourish, inspire, and connect us, and we know this menu is yet another step in that direction.
Of course, we’ll also have our new menu, which includes several old favorites. Starting Tuesday, March 20, 2018, you’ll be able to enjoy your Double Awesome with a side of Curried Sweet Potatoes or a trio of Bluefish Fritters with smoked paprika aioli. Or, you can try one of our new scallion pancake sandwiches, from the rich and meaty Beef & Brocc to the hearty vegan Gabby. (Come in for dinner to bid adieu to our Kimchi Fried Rice, Cumin Lamb Dumplings, and Handmade Mantou. Who knows, they may pop back up, reincarnated as specials!)
Our catering menu will undergo an equally exciting change. I for one am thrilled at the prospect of being able to get scallion pancake sandwiches straight to your homes and offices (and to offer them as salads too)! Starting Tuesday, March 27, 2018, you’ll be able to get that and much, much more.
It's hard to say goodbye. Let us make it easier.
Place your next catering order before Saturday, March 17, 2018 to receive a FREE Maple Sesame Noodle Salad before it comes off the menu. Limit 1 per guest, $300 min order.
2. After six years, our food truck will retire from vending on the streets of Boston to support our growing restaurant and catering business.
Like our colleagues at Clover, a couple years ago, we stopped relying on the food truck vending schedule as a profit engine (PUN!). Instead, we focused on using it for marketing, wedding catering, and training up new staff members. As the winters seem to get worse and the food truck community grows, we’re bowing out of the Boston and Cambridge programs so that we can focus on the restaurant and open up spots for new food truck entrepreneurs. On the bright side, we’ll have more availability to take on private events, so invite us to your workplace party or wedding! We’re excited to grow our food truck catering business and have used open book to engage our whole team around these goals.
We are so grateful to all of you who have supported us through the good and bad times, from our first year on the road to our Kickstarter to the bustling summer lunches at Dewey Square. We’ve got some fun new bits and bobs up our sleeves - a loyalty program, a smidge of restaurant remodeling, new biodynamic wines, and so on.
We'll still cater weddings, throw private events in the restaurant, and teach dumpling classes. We'll still serve pasture-raised meat only. We'll still have bright yellow chairs. And we'll still be working to fill this industry with better ingredients and better jobs.
Questions? Comments?
Feel free to email me irene(at)meimeiboston.com. Thank you all for everything.
Stick with us and stay tuned as we embark on our next five years.
Love,
Irene, the littlest mei mei
and the entire Mei Mei Family