High Grounds Coffee Roasters is a brand-new coffee shop that is setting itself apart with its vast selection of coffee. This new coffee shop, located on the corner of 100 High St., stands out amongst the rest due to it selling non-alcoholic drinks, its home-like atmosphere, and its music stage for live performances.

Charles Garrity, better known as Chuck, owns Death of the Fox Brewery and Coffee Shop in Clarksboro, NJ, and replicated that business model in Glassboro but with the intention of focusing on coffee. 

“It was definitely in our interest to expand out and diversify our business as much as possible, beyond beer,” said Garrity. 

Their menu has everything such as expressos, cappuccinos, tea, and specialty lattes. What makes their lattes so special is the variety of flavors such as Nutella, Twix, and cookie dough. Maria Cummings, High Grounds lead supervisor, has found that the customers are already loving the specialty drinks that they have to offer. 

“I just had a customer in who said, ‘This is my first time in, and I want to try everything.’ You know you can’t try everything at once, but it brings people back,” said Cummings. 

Customers are enjoying the new drinks and High Grounds is even bringing in familiar faces from the Death of the Fox establishment. Drew Yurko, from Mount Ephraim NJ, is a regular at Death of the Fox and is now making the trip down to High Grounds. 

“I’ve lived in a lot of places and it’s hard to get a good consistency coffee shops,” said Yurko. “Every roast they have here is amazing, it’s bold, it’s flavorful. It’s consistently good coffee and that’s what I need in my life.”

A coffee shop is defined for its coffee and Chuck Garrity goes above and beyond to bring his customers the best coffee possible. Every month, Garrity will drive to the New York shipyards and load up his truck with nearly 2,000 pounds of coffee beans. This allows his coffee shops to be supplied with coffee beans from all over; Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, and Brazil to name a few.

“The fresher the better,” Chuck said. “And cutting out any type of middleman, if you can do it, you should do.”

High Grounds sells non-alcoholic craft beer and mocktails too so if you’re not craving coffee, you can try one of their non-alcoholic beverages. Even though they lack alcohol, these types of beverages have been trending upward. 

“In the last couple years, the fastest growing segment of the craft industry is non-alcoholic products,” said Chuck. 

While coffee is at center stage at High Grounds, they also have a stage, where they hope to draw and highlight the local talent. Plans are still in the works, but Garrity would like to have live performances three times a week. Garrity hopes to begin consistently having live events starting in October.

“We want to promote local talent. We understand there’s a music scene at Rowan,” Garrity said. “I don’t care if it’s rock n’ roll or acoustic. I am looking to bring on great local talent to take our stage. There’s a reason why I built a stage here.”

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