{"id":473730,"date":"2026-10-22T20:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T20:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473730\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T20:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T20:10:10","slug":"ampersand-expands-to-make-room-for-growing-demand-tcu-360","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473730\/","title":{"rendered":"Ampersand expands to make room for growing demand \u2013 TCU 360"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ampersand on South University Drive is expanding again, this time into the old Jimmy John\u2019s space next door.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The outside view of Ampersand expansion. (TCU360\/Lexi Kilpatrick)<\/p>\n

The coffee shop originally took over the space that was Doc\u2019s Records. In 2019, the neighboring store, The Box, closed. Ampersand expanded into that space and doubled its original size. Now, the space has since been outgrown and is preparing to expand again into the former Jimmy John\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis space has been in our landlord\u2019s family for his whole life, and there are so many memories attached to it,\u201d said Toan Luong,\u00a0co-founder of Ampersand. \u201cKnowing the history behind it, we feel it\u2019s our responsibility to carry it on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Compton, Ampersand\u2019s store manager, oversees the University Drive location.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe growth in particular with us (Ampersand) is more so because of the growth of TCU,\u201d said Luong. \u201cThe spot next door came to market, and we decided to take it over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve grown a lot, but more importantly we\u2019ve only gotten here because of the TCU community supporting us throughout the years,\u201d Luong added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Toan also gave credit to his staff. \u201cI am the CEO, but I am the least talented person on my team. I\u2019ve been really fortunate enough to have a really great team.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The expansion will make room for a full-sized kitchen for making pastries in-house, a full menu of grab-and-go options that provide fresh food in one convenient stop, a redesigned espresso bar to better serve customers on the go and additional seating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Tran, Ampersand\u2019s director of operations, will be leading the culinary side of the new addition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Luong said the building is being demolished, and they are doing as much as they can until they have to take down the wall in between the two spaces. Their plan is to close the location during winter break when classes are not in session to minimize the impact on students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Construction workers inside of former Jimmy John\u2019s are transforming the area for Ampersand latest expansion. (TCU360\/Lexi Kilpatrick)<\/p>\n

The goal is to have the space ready for students by January 2027, said Dominick Vu, co-founder of Ampersand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Emma Paschall, a junior biology major, said Ampersand is a convenient place to study before exams because she lives south of University Drive and stops there on her way to class.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a good pre-exam spot for me. I like it a lot,\u201d Paschall said. \u201cI think expanding will be really good. A lot of students like studying here, and the tables fill up really fast.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The South University Drive location is the first piece in the expansion program as they are adding a fourth shop in the new terminal at the DFW airport. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ampersand on South University Drive is expanding again, this time into the old Jimmy John\u2019s space next door.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-473730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}