One era of comedy at Austin’s Coffee ends, another begins
For two decades, Sunday night at Austin’s Coffee was where Orlando comics tested material, bombed gloriously and became family. When the coffee shop and creative haven was forced to move, comedian Preacher Lawson stepped in to help keep that Sunday tradition alive.
“I’m really a silent investor. I don’t run the business,” says Lawson, who earned his comedy chops in Orlando and broke out nationally on America’s Got Talent, to Orlando Weekly. “My business was just to make sure that this place doesn’t get shut down, because it’s the longest-running mic in Orlando.”
That’s the short version of a story that has played out since 2021, when the City of Winter Park made it known it wished to buy the land at 929–957 W. Fairbanks Ave. for an intersection and drainage project. The purchase went through in late 2024, and with its lease set to expire October 31, 2025, Austin’s had to act. Fast.
Friends of Austin’s Coffee rose to the occasion and brought in funds. Siblings Angela Whitmer and Richard Whitmer came in as co-owners, and Lawson joined them following an early-August Hail Mary call from the savvy comedy mic mainstay Craig Norberg, who had an inkling Lawson might be game.
