As another West University Avenue business prepares to close its doors for good, long-time customers reminisced Tuesday about the sense of community the shop helped create.
Know Where Coffee, located at 1226 W. University Ave., announced Tuesday that today would be its final day of business, a decision that followed months of mounting debt and a lack of interest from investors.
“I’d understand if it was a case of not being able to sell coffee, but that wasn’t the case,” said Juan Diaz, the shop’s manager. “We were doing good business and we were loved, and the community did like us here.”
About nine months ago, after more than a year in business, the coffee shop — which prides itself on locally sourced artisanal coffee — underwent several renovations and a three-month hiatus, putting it about $30,000 in debt, Diaz said.
Coupled with a slow summer of sales, paying back a loan with limited income dug the shop into a deeper hole.
A few months ago, owner Alfonso Guerrero, a UF alumnus, began soliciting for potential investors. When no one came forward, it was the beginning of the end, Diaz said.
Juanita Pedraza, a 21-year-old UF microbiology and cell science senior, said the announcement didn’t come as a surprise. A few weeks ago, members of the staff told her about the possibility of closure.
She’s been going to Know Where Coffee, a short walk from campus, for the two years it’s been open, she said.
The staff has always been hardworking and very invested in their products, she said. Guerrero’s personal philosophy, she said, was that in order to truly love coffee and have a real experience with it, you have to understand how it is made.
The name, Know Where Coffee, is a play on words based on that very philosophy: Customers should know where their brew comes from.
“Their name is what they’re about,” Pedraza said. “They’re really passionate about what they do.”
The feel and style of the coffee is based off of a coffee shop that Guerrero would visit every day while working in Miami, Diaz said. At some point, the financial adviser fell in love with the process of coffee and knew he had to open a shop in Gainesville, where he spent his college years.
“He wanted to bring the Miami experience to Gainesville since it didn’t have anything like it,” Diaz said.
Over the years, Pedraza said she came to consider the coffee shop staff to be her close friends.
“Last year we had a Thanksgiving,” she said. “It became about more than the coffee.”
