Leo & Co. to Open in Essex’s Former Sweet Clover Market

Kayla Silver Credit: Courtesy of Jeff Price/Ten Acre Creative

The team from Salt & Bubbles Wine Bar and Market is branching out, but not far. This summer, they’ll open Leo & Co. down the sidewalk at 21 Essex Way, the previous site of Sweet Clover Market in the Essex Experience.

Owner Kayla Silver expects the casual counter-service café and market to start serving juices, smoothies, sandwiches, salads and soups in July. She will oversee operations with help from Salt & Bubbles general manager Taylor Rosner. Burlington chef Diego Treviño, previously Silver’s colleague at Honey Road and sous chef at the former incarnation of Deep City, will run Leo & Co.’s kitchen.

The small, independent Sweet Clover Market closed in February after more than 17 years. Co-owner Heather Belcher told Seven Days at the time that she saw local demand for to-go lunches “but didn’t have the energy and tolerance for financial risk” to pursue that opportunity.

Silver has lamented a lack of casual lunch spots since moving to Essex in 2019.

“There’s nowhere to get a decent salad,” she said with a laugh. Sweet Clover Market was “a cornerstone” in Essex, in her view, and she plans to launch a “very similar business, just revamped and reimagined.”

“There’s never a good time to open a second business,” Silver continued, “but I doubt the opportunity would come again for my two businesses to be in the same 100-yard stretch.”

Salt & Bubbles’ new sister restaurant will be the daytime yin to its nighttime yang, Silver said, with a vibe that she describes as “if Poppy Café & Market and Tomgirl juice had a baby, but out here in Essex.” Leo & Co. will open early to serve commuters, then welcome families and remote workers looking for a place to hang out.

The café is named for Silver’s great-uncle, Leo Keiles, who escaped Germany for Ireland during World War II. The fine-foods merchant and candy shop owner lived to nearly 100 and “just wanted life to be beautiful,” she said. “He wanted to bring joy to people and be a center of community, and we want to bring that same idea forward.”

Leo & Co. won’t have a liquor license, and there won’t be a creemee window this summer, Silver said. But it will sell local products, including freezer goods, produce, meat and Red Hen Baking bread, a much-requested Sweet Clover staple.