Laravel Routes not working, Apache configuration only allows for public/index.php/route

Two most common causes of this behavior are:

1. mod_rewrite not enabled

   sudo a2enmod rewrite && sudo service apache2 restart

2. AllowOverride is set to None, set it to All, assuming Apache2.4

   sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

search for <Directory /var/www/> and change AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All, then save the file and restart apache