Gathering Grounds Cafe

I love this place. Great drinks, great breakfast food, decent prices, great atmosphere and people. Free wifi. And now they have beer and wine. Doesn’t get any better than that.

An awesome café! These guys take coffee seriously! Brewed for coffee snobs like me! And they have beer and wine too!

Great little café tucked into a shopping mall next to GMU. Stopped in for a quick breakfast and tea. Egg and bacon croissant was delicious and quite large. Tea was perfect. Great start to the day!

Friendly staff and wonderful cozy décor. It’s a nice place to hang out.
The chai tea latte is good. Apparently you can choose your flavor. Classic it is. A good little pick me up. Not overly sweet.
The crossiant was also good. They can heat it if you want. Flakely and a good size. Mmmmm…
Sat and chatted with friends. Nice calming atmosphere. There’s also more seating in the back.

Stopped in for a cup of coffee the afternoon of 3÷31÷16. Ordered our drinks and waited for her to make them for 20 minutes. There was no one ahead of us, she just couldn’t be persuaded to move with a sense of purpose. If you want a place that is trying for the apathetic hipster vibe where you can spend most of your afternoon and drink sub-​par coffee this is where you want to be. If you just want a an espresso and to move on with your life, go somewhere else. The coffee isn’t great either, it has an acidic/​floral quality that is not enjoyable at all. They will be serving beer soon, so you have that to look forward to if you ever make the mistake of walking through the door.

I wanted something healthy and without «unhappy» animal meat for my breakfast, I thus ordered a smoothie! I now have a milkshake made with, from what I have seen, non organic milk. It was 4.5 $ for a medium. And it is super sweet. Not at all what I wanted. Frustrated in the morning… Employees are nice but the menu was made by someone who does not really know how to dissociate a milk shake from a smoothie.

Gathering Grounds have a lot of unique and interesting lattes, like White Rabbit (white chcolate and hazlenut) and Jolly Almond (almond/​coconut and chocolate). They also have their own Seasonal Offerings, this time they have The Leprechaun (peppermint and white chocolate) and the Iris (Irish cream and chocolate). I got the Leprechaun and it tastes amazing! The peppermint wasn’t too overpowering, so I could definitely taste the white chocolate with hint of espresso. I would have come here a lot sooner if I knew! Their small is $ 4 each which is normal for a latte. I didn’t get a chance to go into the store deeper, but they seem to have more room in the back and there is enough seating in the front. Good customer service.

Weak/​weird latte (didn’t even drink it because there was a strange aftertaste) and a lukewarm on the outside and stone cold (like from the fridge cold) on the inside spinach and tomato quiche. That was okay when I reheated it in the microwave and then sexed it up a bit with some much needed seasoning.
I was overcharged for a bagel that I changed my mind about (in favor of quiche), and then the server didn’t know how to refund my cash, so he gave me a card for a free drink in the future. That said, I really hope they step up their game on their beverages «in the future,» because if/​when I go back to get my free coffee, I don’t want to have to dump it again. Seems like a waste.
Other than that, the place is cute and has nice seating. The service wasn’t stellar, but it was friendly enough. It just seemed that I was interrupting a conversation and that maybe if they were paying more attention to their customers than to one another that I wouldn’t have been overcharged in the first place.
Right next door lives a Dunkin’ Donuts which I eschewed in favor of this Gathering Grounds because of the sweet name and because I prefer to support Mom-​n-​Pop shops over chains. I really don’t like giving them bad reviews, but this was just not a pleasant experience. I might have to choose the door on the left next time.

Staff is polite and knowledgeable, food is great, drinks are perfect. Better than any Starbucks or dunkin you could step foot in. Lots of GMU students but this shop is very quiet and productive. Very comfortable.
Great list of specialty lattes, large selection of tea, they do both French press and pour overs. Good selection of beans. Very pleased with every drink I have had from this shop. Prices are very reasonable for the quality of the beverage.
Not sure who the owner is but they’re doing a great job.

I really liked this place. Very cute interior with enough seating for students from the nearby George Mason University. Wish they had this café when I was attending Mason, it would’ve saved me a lot of time walking around JC in search of a table hahaha It’s clean, well lit and has a great variety of coffee drinks. I had Jolly Almond and it was yum, I could really taste the almond :) the girls working there were very friendly. I read on here that their Apple Buzz (apple cider with a shot of espresso) is a must — that is on my list for my next visit :)

Good. Comfortable. Friendly. Great breakfast sandwich choices. Much better than any chain. Great selection. Do not feed the corporate monster! Stop and enjoy a unique coffee house.

Gathering Grounds has gotten me all appppple buzzzzzz’ed! Never in a million years would I have thought to mix apple cider and espresso together but my gooooooodness it’s … geniuuuuus!!! As long as this drink is in my life (please don’t let it be seasonal), I feel confident enough to bid farewell to my good olé binge-​drinking-​redbulls-​and-​feeling-​like-​I-​might-​have-​self-​induced-​a-​heart-​attack days. For now, at least.
Gathering Grounds is conveniently located right across from GMU, and smack dead center on the newly renovated University Mall complex. I’d recommend skipping the long hike to campus & fighting for a study area in the overcrowded JC because this place makes for a great study spot!
+ high ceiling— makes you feel less claustrophobic & adds to the open space!
+ ample lighting — - just look up, there’s probably 6 – 7 light fixtures on top of your table!
+ tons of tables & seating options— perfect table height to accommodate my asian short genes!
+ realllllllly good eclectic music playlist— i must have had 3 – 4 ear orgasms while studying & listening to their psychedelic pop/​indie folk/​acid jazz music selections
+ music is played at the perfect volume— not too loud that distracts you from studying & not too soft where you can’t hear the words!
+ a wide array of unique drink options for your daily caffeine fix!
+ free chocolate chip cookies (don’t have to tell me twice!)
+ some other great study snacks/​foods— i enjoyed their chicken salad w/​cranberry on toasted wheat croissant!
+ clean bathroom— absolute necessary as caffeine is a diuretic and you will be frequenting here often if you’re doing a study marathon!
The not so great aspects:
— they close early (and yes, 10pm/​8pm/​7pm are very early closing hours especially since 99% of the GMU populations are night walkers … even extending the hours during midterms and finals week would be extremely helpful)
— slow service when there’s not many people in line
— the baristas here don’t label coffee cups. things get confusing when multiple people are waiting for their drinks.
— food selections are healthy but limited. i also noticed an egg theme in all their food choices— egg white burrito, egg & cheese muffin, quiche with egg, egg combo, etc. (the owners must really like eggs!)
— their spinach & tomato quiche is very plain! i recommend skipping over this item!
Overall, I believe this place is promising and a much better option than Starbucks! I
P. S.— I heard through the grapevines that they’re planning on adding juicing options! I hope that’s true! Yessssssss pleeeeeeeeeease. Nothing like a caffeine high follow by a sugar high ;)

We were leaving a swim meet at George Mason and stopped in for a pastry and hot chocolate for one of my girls. We decided to order a slice of Lemon Loaf cake and a blondie brownie. We ate inside and it was cute and cozy. The barista was very sweet and patient. No complaints there. But man, their pastries were awful. The cake was hard and had a very strong taste. Just not good. And the brownie crumpled into a million pieces when you touched it. I don’t know if they were super old, because it was a Sunday afternoon, but what a waste of a snack. The hot chocolate, according to my daughter was great, so that’s good.

I love the décor and the all the lights at this coffee shop. It seemed like there wasn’t much seating at first but there were more seats in the back.
There is a nice variety of coffee drinks and some baked goods but not many. I got a frozen soy coconut latte and it was delicious. I also had a chocolate bundt cake but that was not as good, it was very dry and didn’t have much taste. The workers were pretty friendly and made my drink quickly and well. I plan to go there again sometime!

Outstanding! The pumpkin spice latte puts Starbucks to shame! Great prices. Great seating.

How is this a 4 star coffee shop? The most distinctive feature of this place is the excellent and friendly customer service and dirt cheap prices. But the food is poor quality, not fresh, microwaved and not tasty. Breakfast was a microwaved sandwich served plain on a Dixie paper plate. It was sad and not healthy and just tasted like salt and oil and processed crap.
Go here for the drinks only.

Great coffee shop for university students! I recently checked this place out because my summer class breaks allowed me enough time to drive to University Mall. They offer a variety of coffee selections and if you ask the baristas for any recommendations, they suggest excellent drinks according to your taste! This place is serves your drinks fast, the staff is friendly, and it’s conveniently close to campus!

*** 3 ½ Stars****
They have really upgraded University Mall since I’ve graduated from Ye Old George Mason six years ago. Many of the shops/​restaurants are still there along with many new ones. Gathering Grounds took over for Saxby’s coffee but from what I can tell, they serve many of the same things. It was a hot day when I visited, so I opted for one of their specialty drinks, the British Islander, iced. This drink is coffee with macadamia nut, white chocolate, butterscotch, and toffee flavors. Give it a chance. It sounds like it would be overly sweet, but it surprisingly wasn’t. The flavors worked and I felt you could still taste the coffee. It was fairly well made.
There was one person working when I was there and he was friendly enough. Plenty of spaces to sit and they have wifi. They are on the pricier side in terms of specialty coffee so keep that in mind. Otherwise, not bad at all.

3.5 stars
I really liked the variety in their smoothies and latte selections– I had the milky way latte which tasted straight up sugar and caramel (but isn’t that what a milky way tastes like?). The service was good– nothing to complain about but nothing to rave about either. The place is kept pretty clean since I saw the worker clean like 3 times while I was there with my friend chatting away for 2 hours. The place is in the middle of the university plaza and easily found. I find it ironic how close it is to Dunkin’ Donuts but this place is more of a «get your coffee/​tea, stay here for a while to do homework» type of place. But it definitely doesn’t have the «quiet» vibe since it’s open and very well-​lit. There’s a lot of open seating outside. There are only three comfy chairs/​loveseat looking things in the way back behind the bathrooms that look like they’ve been used and beat up quite a bit. This place doesn’t have the homey-​café vibe but it’s still a great place to hang out. There’s free wi-​fi so, hey at least you can get that too!

So the reviews that proceed me are obviously shills for the new ownership. First, Saxby’s never reached its potential because DD is right next door and the ownership didn’t get creative and market their differentiation.
Common Grounds is actually a weaker version of Saxby’s but I will sum it up with my last experience… A very nice person held the door for me as I walked in behind him. He then walked behind the counter and started making coffee drinks. HE NEVER WASHED HIS HANDS!!! Needless to say, I walked out and over to DD for my cup of coffee.