After eight years spent just blocks from campus, a Gainesville coffee shop has moved closer to downtown — and now it serves beer.
Karma Cream, now located at 607 W. University Ave., will open its doors today at 8 a.m., in the same space the now-defunct Swift Cycle once occupied. While its menu of coffee and vegan snacks will remain mostly unchanged, the shop will now serve organic beer on tap and offer expanded seating, said owner Kyle Fick.
An expired lease at its former 1025 W. University Ave. location, along with a demand for more space spurred the move, Fick said.
“Our last place was pretty small,” he said. “Here we have room for more seating and operations.”
The response to the location change on social media has been mostly positive, he added. “Overall, everyone is pretty excited,” he said. “This is an up and coming area with all of the nearby apartments and Innovation Square.”
Prices range from $2 to $10, and its hours of operation are 9 a.m. to midnight on weekdays, and 11 a.m. to midnight Saturday and Sunday.
From his apartment at The Continuum, 23-year-old Sebastian Belloni would walk about half a mile once a week to grab his morning coffee. The move puts his favorite shop within 200 yards, he said.
The UF political science graduate student said he the former location seemed to be doing well, so he isn’t sure why the owner moved. But he isn’t complaining.
“I will be more likely to go grab a coffee more frequently since I will be able to just walk a block down University Avenue,” he said.
