Sick and sluggish from a diet of fast food and boxed meals, 18-year-old Amber Poupore was challenged by a friend to look at what she was actually putting into her body. “She pulled a box of Rice-A-Roni out of my cabinet,” Amber recalls, laughing. “And she said, ‘Amber, read these ingredients. You can’t even pronounce half of them. This isn’t food.’ That was the start of everything. Once you know, you can’t un-know.”
That wake-up call lit a fire that’s never gone out. Amber’s 'why' has always been clear: food should be real, alive, and healing. Eating real food healed Amber, lifting her depression, transforming her health, and giving her a sense of purpose. And it became the foundation of her work as founder of Cacao Tree Café, Royal Oak’s beloved whole-food, plant-based oasis, now celebrating its fifteenth anniversary.
When Amber first opened Cacao Tree in a former smoothie bar, the tiny kitchen left little room for cooking. So she started with what the space could handle best—smoothies, juices, and raw treats—while experimenting with ways to add savory dishes that would satisfy her growing community.
Amber understands both raw food’s promise and also its pitfalls.
“Given where we live in Michigan, I don’t recommend a 100 percent raw diet,” she admits. “When you take out all the grounding foods—roots, grains, legumes—it’s easy to lose that balance. Cooked sweet potatoes, quinoa, roasted beets—those are medicine, too.”
That balance wasn’t always her mantra. After immersing herself in the raw movement in the early 2000s—training at Gabriel Cousens’ Tree of Life Center, discovering raw cacao before it was even on the market, exploring raw fine dining in Chicago—Amber was hooked. But working at Royal Oak’s late, lamented vegan/vegetarian Inn Season Café, she also saw needs that weren’t being filled: soy-free or gluten-free options. Juices and smoothies. Raw vegan desserts.
“It wasn’t safe opening a raw, plant-based café,” Amber admits. “It might as well be a nonprofit. But I care too much about my community, about giving people real food, to walk away.”
Cacao Tree offered green juices before they were trendy. I’ve watched their almond milk being made by hand in front of me. And their menu has evolved alongside Amber’s journey, expanding to soups, bowls, and cooked dishes that bring in warmth and comfort. “2011 Amber would have had a stroke if you told her we’d serve corn chips or vegan mayo one day,” she says, laughing. “But we adapted. It’s about sustainability, sourcing, balance. Sometimes maple syrup from Michigan makes more sense than coconut nectar flown halfway across the world.”
Her journey hasn’t been without heartbreak. Losing her second restaurant, The Clean Plate, in 2018—and with it, her dream of multiplying its model across Detroit—was, in her words, “one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life.” But she’s continued to push forward: catering, teaching, working with the Navajo Nation on food and health, even cooking for hundreds aboard vegan cruises. Today, she’s preparing to open a new venture, Herban Grounds, in St. Clair Shores.
What keeps her going? The stories. The moments when food truly changes lives. Like the woman who approached her years after a single class and said, “That night shifted everything. I walked out and changed what I put in my body, and it healed me.”
Amber smiles when she tells that story. “Those are the things that keep me going. It’s never been about the financial success—it’s about the impact. If I died tomorrow, I’d know I’ve lived a fulfilling life.”
And if you walk into Cacao Tree for the first time, what’s her advice? Don’t get trapped in labels. Just eat real food. “Sometimes that means the vegan burrito,” she says. “Sometimes that means your grandma’s apple bread. It’s about nourishment, connection, and forgiveness. We live in a harsh world—we need to be kinder to ourselves.”
That’s Amber’s why. And it’s why Cacao Tree Café, against the odds, has endured: it’s a reminder that food—real food—has the power to change everything.
Cacao Tree Café (cacaotreecafe.com) is at 204 West Fourth Street in Royal Oak.
“I care too much about giving people real food to walk away.”
We live in a harsh world—we need to be kinder to ourselves.