57The Bear on the Fence
Hand-painted Baylor bear head on the weathered picket fence at Common Grounds, 1123 S 8th St, under the shop’s red rooftop COFFEE sign · painter not on record — know who painted the bear, or when? Tell us.SIGN
A green-and-gold Baylor bear snarling off a gray picket fence, under a red box that just says COFFEE.
Common Grounds has been the coffee shop of record for Baylor students for decades, and its front on South 8th looks the part: a low gray shack with a weathered picket fence for a wall, and on the roof a red box sign with white block letters that says exactly one thing — COFFEE. No name, no logo. If you have to ask which coffee, you are not from here.
Painted across the pickets is the Baylor bear: the green BAYLOR wordmark in its gold outline, and beneath it the bear head, brown with a gold-yellow muzzle, teeth bared, eyes narrowed. It is painted straight onto the boards, so every gap between the pickets runs a thin gray line through the bear’s face, and the paint has weathered with the wood to the same soft, sun-faded finish.
The patio behind it is where the real action is — tables under the trees, a stage for shows — but the fence is what the sidewalk sees.
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