A bakery-cafe near Fort Worth with a TCU Horned Frogs connection now serves dinner
Once a little cafe-bakery tribute to a 7-year-old hero, Grounds & Gold Co. is now the dinner restaurant southwest Arlington needed.
The story of the late Micah Ahern is part of TCU baseball legend. Before the gutsy little Horned Frogs fan lost his fight against neuroblastoma cancer in 2017, TCU made him an honorary Frog and gave him a College World Series team ring.
Micah’s father, Maurice Ahern, started doing what he loved: baking. He opened a small shop in west Arlington, then expanded to a large coffee shop and bakery at 4130 S. Bowen Road off Interstate 20.
Now, Grounds & Gold Co. is an all-day restaurant.
The lights go down after 5 p.m. for a dinner menu ranging from steak frites or orange-glaze fried chicken to a falafel wrap, salads and soups, served with the familiar G&G baked goods and coffees.
Noted Arlington chef “Moose” Benhamacht helped draw up the dinner menu, lifting Grounds & Gold from a salad/lunch cafe to an all-day dining option across South Brown Road from the more familiar Bobby V’s sports grill.
When G&G opened, Maurice Ahern said, he wanted to stay open later, “but people said, ‘Oh, that’s just a coffee shop.’ “
“But we would get so busy, there’d be no room for people to sit. This way, we give people more options. We are in a part of [suburban] Arlington where we can be a community cafe.”
Grounds & Gold plans to add a patio, he said. He hopes to expand the concept to more locations.
The top seller so far has been the braised short rib, he said, along with the $10 dinner basket of G&G’s popular biscuits.
The restaurant was busy Monday at the first dinner service.
“It’s a way I see my son,” Ahern said. “My son had a way of bringing people together, so people can take time to enjoy one another. ... This is a way of carrying that on.”
Grounds & Gold Co. is now open for lunch and dinner daily except Sundays; 682-252-4633, groundsandgold.com.
This story was originally published November 20, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
