Purple Tree Cafe

Purple Tree Cafe is a Davis nonprofit that creates community jobs for people with disabilities and brings people with and without disabilities together through food, art and music. It started in 2018 as a bicycle-powered coffee cart at the Davis Farmers Market, and in April 2024 opened its first brick-and-mortar cafe on the second floor of the UC Davis MIND Institute, reviving a cafe that had been closed since the pandemic.

The counter serves coffee, organic teas and lemonade, with a bakery case that is entirely vegan and wheat-free: chocolate raspberry cookies, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, lemon blueberry scones, date nut bars, almond biscotti and granola. It is open to MIND Institute staff, patients and the public on weekday mornings and early afternoons, Monday through Thursday. You can also find the cart at the Davis Farmers Market on Saturdays.