Coffee and baked goods have always gone together, like rock 'n' roll, yin and yang, and bald-eagle hatchlings and William Howard Taft's toupee. Introduce your mouth to a dazzling duet with today's Groupon: for $15, you get $30 worth of café fare at Ground Control, located in Goodyear.
Ground Control packs European flair from the owner's worldly travels into a casual community café. Expansive breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus showcase continental influences in dishes such as the salmon crostini, which arrives atop toasted baguette slices with cream cheese, capers, and onions ($7.49). Cheese boards ($7–$14) unite dairy delicacies with dried apples, fresh fruit, nuts, and a fresh baguette, and desserts such as gelato- and chocolate-sauce-covered cookies ($7) reward well-behaved tongues.
Ground Control's traditional café drinks include lattes ($3.75), mochas ($4), and iced teas ($2) alongside blended smoothies ($3.25) and more than 150 beer selections. Customers can also opt for a french-press coffee carafe ($3.50–$5) to communally interrogate coffee grounds into disclosing vital energy secrets. Special weekly events at Ground Control range from wine and beer tastings to live comedy shows and musical performances.
Ground Control
Ground Control’s cuisine reflects the cosmopolitan lifestyle of its owner, Sean, who offsets his nightly bartending with daily travels as a professional pilot. He and his wife, Tara, have also lived abroad, a sojourn that developed their taste for European dining. Now settled in Arizona, executive chef Chris Ibarra still satisfies their cravings—and those of their patrons—with scoops of house-made gelato atop stuffed crepes, short ribs braised in Guinness, and custom wood-fired pizzas crowned in ingredients such as roma tomatoes, duck, and gouda. Open for three meals a day, the eatery also anoints glasses with exotic ingredients by serving rich espresso drinks, creative cocktails, and sippy cups of water from the Fountain of Youth. Live music fills the space every Friday from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.