“Right now we’re looking at possibly late August, early September,” Sandoval said in regard to an opening date. “We’re pretty much retrofitting an older building to fit our needs. It has new restrooms, a new kitchen, we had to figure out what works best for us. With COVID and all that, there’s a shortage of a lot of things so we’re really having to wait on a lot of items.”
Spray foam on the roof and new lights are already in place.
Along with a new kitchen and restrooms, further additions to the facility include a coffee bar, a meeting room for conferences, an inventory room, a coffee roasting room, office space, and a dining area behind the building.
“It’s coming together,” Sandoval said. “Once the plumbers are done with their part we can have the concrete guys come in and do the flooring and then we can do the counter tops. When one is done with one part of it then the others can come in and do their part and it’ll all come together. Monday morning they’re going to bring the crane and raise the air conditioners. A lot of things we have in boxes and can be opened up and put up, but for now it’s just a matter of time.”
A stage and patio will also be constructed in the vicinity of the bay doors that face Austin Avenue.
“We’re leaving some of these overhead windows,” Sandoval said. “We’re going to do a stage in that area and when we have live music we’ll have a patio outside so people can still enjoy some of the music.”
As for what types of food will be available at the new location, Sandoval stated that is still up in the air.
“We’re still tweaking the menu,” Sandoval said. “We’re not 100 percent sure what we want to do. My wife (Yesy) is over the kitchen and she’s still trying to tweak and see what we can offer.”
There will be a drive-thru window as well, which was recently installed.
“We got with TxDOT and wanted to have the drive-thru in the back, but they didn’t want the traffic backing up,” Sandoval said. “TxDOT said it would better for traffic to come in off Booker Street and turn around and exit back onto Austin.”
The Main Street and Austin Avenue intersection is the second-busiest in Brownwood, Sandoval was told by TxDOT.
“That’s a good plus for us,” Sandoval said.
Christopher Burnett, a six-year employee of Common Grounds, will serve as general manager at the new location.
Regarding the long term vision for Common Grounds – which the Sandovals have owned since Dec. 5, 2011 – Sandoval said, “Once we make the move, we may consider just selling that other building and just focusing on this.”
