All profits from the Common Grounds Café go to missions the church supports. Donations from the coffee shop go directly to missions, located both locally and internationally.“The goal of the coffee shop is to provide people a good place to hang out, have good coffee, all while supporting a good cause,” Borrello said. “The church holds missions very close to it’s heart and Common Grounds has been a great resources for helping increase our abilities to fund those missions.”For a more extensive look at the missions work Gathering Place is involved with, go to the Outreach tab on their website, at gpchurch.tv.

Common Grounds Café was created to simply serve the community. The Gathering Place church in Moody wanted to provide people with a warm environment to hang out in.

“The whole concept for Common Grounds came from a church project the Gathering Place did called the Harvest Project,” General Manager Ben Borrello said. “We opened up communication with the community to find out what they felt the area was lacking. We talked to community members and asked them what they wanted in a new business.”

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The overwhelming response to the query was that people wanted a safe place that offered something for the whole family. The Gathering Place took that answer and decided to open up a coffee shop and playground, catering to people with all interests.

The building is sectioned off into three parts, the main coffee shop, the playground, and the church’s second campus. The coffee shop and play area are open to the public, while the church’s campus and administrative offices are located in the back of the building.

The coffee shop was opened in August of 2014. Since then, it has been open to serve all members of the community, whether they have a church affiliation or not.

“A common misconception is that the coffee shop is only open to church members,” Borrello said. “That is untrue; it is open to anyone and is not exclusive to people who have a religious background or anything like that. We aren’t here to force our customers to visit our church. We have material available, if they’re interested, but that is not the goal of the coffee shop”

The coffee shop has a wide variety of coffees, lattes, smoothies and baked goods. Most of the flavored syrups are made in-house and contain no artificial ingredients.

“When we decided to open the coffee shop, we wanted it to be top quality,” Borrello said. “We strive to have the best quality coffee and products, and one way we do that is by only serving fresh products.”

Common Grounds is committed to becoming a hub for people of all ages in the St. Clair community. One of the ways they reach out is by hosting events, catering to people of all ages.  They show football games on the coffee shop televisions and have events for holidays and are hosting their upcoming fall festival this month.

“We like to have acoustic concerts in here, as well,” Borrello said. “It’s a way to provide people with some relaxing entertainment while introducing them to the coffee shop, since it’s relatively still new.”

The staff at Common Grounds is responsible for creating seasonal menu items. They create specialty drinks for the coffee bar, and constantly add new concoction to the menu. The current specials include Nutella, Banana Split and Almond Joy lattes and more.

For more information on Common Grounds, visit commongrounds.tv, find it on Facebook or call the café at (205) 401-7869.

Common Grounds Cafe

1005 Crossroads Plaza Drive

Moody, AL 35004

Monday-Saturday 7 a.m.-8 p.m.

(205) 401-7869

commongrounds.tv

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Common Grounds offers:

• Lattes

• Smoothies

• Cappuccino

• Frios Pops

• Coffee Blends available

by the pound

• Light refreshments available alongside their fair-trade coffee