As a little baby Wake Forest freshman, there are still tons of things I have yet to learn about campus. For example, I have yet to figure out how to go to the gym without looking like a completely lost little puppy. However, there's one thing I know to be true about this place, and that is the fact that Campus Grounds is extremely cool. In case you have yet to figure this out, or need more convincing (although I don't know why you would, because it's a beautiful coffee paradise), keep reading about one of the best spots on campus.
All the people who work there are cool and super friendly. And they're all students!
Pretty much everyone who works in food service at Wake is super sweet and incredibly nice, but it's extra cool when they're your peers! I'm pretty sure everyone who works at Campus Grounds is cooler than me, so it feels doubly great when you get to chat with them while they make your drink. Speaking of chatting...
There’s never a line like Starbucks.
The ZSR Starbucks is almost always the most hectic place on the planet, or at least it is when I'm there. Campus Grounds takes slightly longer to make drinks, because there are less people working at one given time, but I have NEVER seen a crazy line, so it usually takes even less time to get a drink than it would at Starbucks. Plus, when you go to Campus Grounds, you are...
Supporting local businesses!
Not only is Campus Grounds itself a local business (that offers cool swag like free stickers as well as t-shirts and mugs that you can buy), but they offer tons of local Winston-Salem products, like Bagel Station bagels, Gigi's Cupcakes, Camino Bakery pastries, Village Juice drinks, and UpDog Kombucha. Fun fact: all of these things taste like actual heaven. The coffee at CG is from Krankies Coffee, which is, you guessed it, local! Food and drinks aren't the only local things they have, though...
There’s tons of student art and performances.
Campus Grounds usually has some kind of student art exhibition up on the walls, and copies of 3 to 4 Ounces, the Wake Forest literary magazine, are readily available (fo' free)! They also have Hot Tuesdays a capella performances during the evening, and they have a piano in there for the musically inclined to do a little practicing. Overall, it's a highly cool and unique place that makes me feel a little artsier and more creative just after hanging out. And because it's so unique...
The specialty drinks are seriously out of this world.
Try a Hatch's Hazelnut. Enough said. Your life will change.
If you like coffee, tea, hot chocolate, delicious pastries, fancy juices, cupcakes, healthy kombucha, and/or cool spaces for students... you will LOVE Campus Grounds. (And if you don't like one or more of those things, I'm not sure you're human. Just saying.)
