For Kimberly Porter, a cup of coffee has always meant more than just caffeine. It symbolizes the sound of family gathering around a kitchen table and the feeling that anyone who walks through the door belongs there. That warm atmosphere is what she aims to recreate in Gainesville with Audrey’s Coffee, a new family-run coffee truck named after her late mother.
“Everybody was just comfortable around her — you just knew you were welcome. Everybody got along. We all had so much fun. It was just a big, happy family,” Porter said. “Those moments of grabbing a cup of coffee, sitting around the table, it’s a cup of comfort.”
Porter grew up just outside Chicago and visited Gainesville with her husband about 25 years ago when he was attending the University of Florida. Around that time, one of his professors introduced him to the process of roasting coffee beans at home…