Located on Ninth Avenue in Sistrunk Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale is Blue Tree Cafe, a vegan soul food restaurant that offers more than food. It offers a sanctuary and a story. Like a real tree, Blue Tree Cafe has grown into what it is after many years in the making, and at the root of the restaurant is Sharon Allen and her daughter, Nika King, who share a journey of healing and hope for the community around them.
The cafe opened in September 2022, but the process started long before that. Like many businesses, this one was affected by COVID. It was originally supposed to be a dine-in restaurant with burgers, coffee, and pastries such as danishes, but it was King who promoted the concept of a vegan restaurant. Today, it’s for orders and pick up only; there’s no dining in.
Allen, who grew up in Miami, said her father was a pastor whose church survived on Saturday food sales.
“I knew I wasn’t a marvelous cook,” Allen said with a laugh, “but I also knew that I had the basics of cooking, and I knew how to stretch a dollar and feed a crowd.”
Allen attended the University of Florida in Gainesville before moving back down to South Florida to finish her degree in Business Administration at Florida International University in 2005. Shortly after graduating, she started a job at the post office but was fired after a couple of years.
“When they let me go, I thought, ‘What do I know? I know food,’” she says.
She decided to attend the Culinary Program at Sheridan Technical College. Shortly after graduating, Allen started selling the food she would make. She began with a small tent at events in Miami such as Jazz in the Gardens to then have her own food truck.
Johnathan Brown, the Community Redevelopment Agency manager for the city of Fort Lauderdale, suggested Allen start her own restaurant. Once Allen had the grants to do so, she brought her daughter into the picture.
Growing up in Liberty City projects along with her siblings, King recalled they were always moving, but even amid the chaos, there was love — and there was food.
King said that as a child her diet consisted of typical junk food, but one day that all changed when her mom announced that they were no longer going to consume pork in order to improve their eating habits.
“I like to consider myself plant-based,” King says. “My mom indirectly started that journey for me.”
The mom-and-daughter team knew there was a deeper conversation beneath the surface: the connection between unhealthy food and the generational health issues plaguing Black communities.
“I’ve never wanted to look down on soul food,” King said. “That food came from a place of survival, from doing the best with what we had during slavery. But the reality is, we’re dying from diseases that are preventable — high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.”
She adds, “We had to start making changes.”
Allen said, “From here on 9th Avenue to 27th (in Fort Lauderdale), there’s no real access to fresh produce. Our kids are growing up on fried wings, sausage sandwiches, pickled eggs, and soda. It’s not that food is unavailable — it’s that unhealthy food is.”
That’s where their Blue Tree Cafe comes in.
One of the best options to go at the restaurant is being able to build your own “Blue Soul Bowl” from which people are able to choose from vegan protein and two sides. For example, collard greens simmered with spice blends and fresh cut veggies such as peppers and house-made sauces. Other dishes are made with coconut or almond milk, vegan butter, and heart-healthy, all tailored for customers with dietary restrictions like low-sodium or oil-free needs.
“You have to know how to work with flavor,” Allen explains. “You want collard greens? We do them with smoked paprika and garlic. Mushrooms? We dress them with onions and peppers. We’re not trying to take away comfort — we’re just trying to transform it.”
When two best friends Lovetie Cordero and Gabriella Villanueva, stumbled upon the restaurant on DoorDash, they were pretty confident it was going to be good.
“I wanted to have something healthy because I’m on a whole food kick, I saw them on DoorDash and thought why not?” said Villanueva, 21.
“I heard about the restaurant on X [formerly Twitter] previous to trying it, because there was a thread discussing Nika King and I wanted to support it.” said Cordero, 21.
To Allen and King, Blue Tree Cafe is more than a restaurant, it’s a place that has the same compassion that Allen embodied when she fed neighborhood kids while also providing for her own.
It’s clear that King inherited Sharon’s generosity to give back to the community. The duo gives back to the community through Rose of Sharon, an organization founded by King and named after her mother that spreads knowledge and experiences to Black and brown communities from South Florida and Los Angeles.
Having acted on popular streaming series like “Euphoria,” King once saw landing a role as the destination. Now, she says the platform is simply a vehicle for purpose.
“The spotlight means nothing if I’m not using it to shine light on something greater than myself,” she says. “Acting brought me to advocacy. It gave me the tools to tell stories, to elevate voices, to make people care.”
While King has confirmed that she will not be returning to “Euphoria,” she is acting, starring in a recent movie called “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot,” based on a true story about vulnerable children in foster care. She also does comedy and has become an inspirational speaker for different summits on the West Coast while also using her program Rose of Sharon in Los Angeles to give back on both the East and West Coast.
Still, change isn’t easy. Allen sees it firsthand everyday. Even as gentrification tIghtens its grip on the community of Sistrunk and familiar faces begin to fade, she remains determined.
“I know in five to 10 years, I might not be cooking for our people anymore,” she says. “But that just means I’ll have to go find them again and start all over.”
