Ampersand Coffee
Ampersand Coffee
Owners Mimi Lu and Toan Luong have been friends since childhood. They joined forces in 2018 with two other friends, Huy Vu and Michael Lee, to open the first Ampersand Coffee on Bledsoe Street in Crockett Row.
Glorious news for coffee-craving collegians: Ampersand Coffee will be opening near TCU by early November.
Record Town moved from its iconic location at 3025 S. University Drive to a new home in the Near Southside neighborhood back in May 2018 after six decades overlooking TCU campus. Ampersand Coffee has had its eye on that spot ever since, where the newest location will open. “The space has a lot of history,” says Mimi Lu, co-owner. “We have big shoes to fill.”
Owners Lu and Toan Luong have been friends since childhood. They joined forces in 2018 with two other friends to open the first Ampersand Coffee on Bledsoe Street in Crockett Row.
It is a business-in-the-front coffee shop with a literal party in the back. Serving coffee by day, Ampersand has an alter ego that serves cocktails at night. “It began as a secret,” Lu says of the backroom speakeasy setting. But now the secret is out, and everybody knows that Ampersand has a dual personality.
“Our growth has exploded. It has tripled this year,” she says. The split between Ampersand’s coffee bar and cocktail lounge business is about 50-50 on Bledsoe.
This one, however, will not include a backroom cocktail lounge. Instead, it will be a full coffee concept, with plenty of chairs and banquettes that can be shuffled between two and six tops, as well as a large communal table space ideal for laptop-toting students to hang out and study. The plan is to be open from 6 a.m. to about 10:30 p.m.
With a full range of specialty coffee drinks from Vietnamese iced coffee to their popular lavender or rose lattes, Ampersand air roasts their own blend of arabica beans.
“At this location, we are not planning to apply for a liquor license or serve any kind of alcohol at this time,” Lu says. Snacks at the Ampersand on University will include breakfast tacos from Taco Heads, locally-sourced pastries, and various toasts, including two dessert toasts and an avocado toast, as well as a toasted lox bagel.
