Cafe Gratitude

You know when you go into a restaurant and order and NOTHING ypu order will increase your LDL AND will be delicious… you have a GREAT place! Love you Café Gratitude! Love your tostadas!!!

The food was wonderful and super filling. A little expensive but I had plenty of food for leftovers and the smoothies are a great thing to hold and sip while walking around Santa Cruz.

Great food and drink.
Service polite but they lost our order, and the place was nearly empty and we had to ask before they even noticed we were without anything on the table.
Probably won’t go back.

Great food. I am in love with their I Am Whole salad. Ah what flavors! They earn extra credit for being organic and local. The place smelled a bit weird when we went there on the Memorial day weekend. But once the food arrived, I could almost neglect everything else. Definitely going there again.
Wish the desserts were not so $$$!

Ate here every day that we were staying in Santa Cruz because IT’S THAT GOOD! Loved the yummy bread that the sandwiches are made on. The cucumber sandwich is superb. I will call it «I am Superb» because I can’t remember the name. Enjoyed amazing smoothies. Drank some immune elixir that almost made my head explode, but in a good and only slightly painful way. YES Café Gratitude, I WILL MARRY YOU!

Café Gratitude is a wonderful eatery and vegan bistro. They make wonderful vegan desserts as well. The staff are great and the service is good. We keep going back. It is a great option for downtown Santa Cruz. Love it!!!
Highly recommend!!! It does not disappoint for vegan and/​or vegetarian options!

Lettuce was brown today– not fresh. While it is nice to come and order a healthy meal, I don’t appreciate paying $ 16 dollars for a plate of tacos and brown lettuce. The food is mediocre, not great, and parking is a pain. I most likely will not be returning after my brown lettuce mishap. Desserts are overpriced as well, and while I know they are «healthy» so is not spending $ 10 bucks on a damn piece of pie.

I’m so glad places like this exist. It’s wonderful to look through a menu and be able to eat anything on it. The food is delightfully fresh, incredibly flavorful, and pleased everyone in our party– vegans and non-​vegans alike. Between our group, we had the macro bowl (Whole), sushi bowl (Accepting), BLT sandwich (Extraordinary), the soup, sides of potato wedges, and one of the specials (eggplant sandwich). Everything was fantastic. Only complaint is that it was a little slow and took a while to get seated, but I’m guessing our party size didn’t help, so I won’t knock them for that. I would absolutely come back. Thanks for an amazing experience! Loved it here!

Just visited our buddies who live in Santa Cruz for a week with my husband for my birthday… and we decided to stop into Café Gratitude! I’m a vegan & my husband is a vegetarian so we were excited to try out this place for the first time.
IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT! We have a very limited amount of vegan options in Norcal and this was like a breath of fresh air. The ambiance, the music, the staff, the feel… everything was good! The food though… ESPECIALLY good! I got the burger there and I absolutely loved it! My salad was good too, a little too much dressing but still yummy. I would absolutely love to come again and try something new! Thanks Café Gratitude for giving us such a great experience!

I lost my appetite after getting my food. I’ve been to the same café in San Diego, and it was amazing, but this Santa Cruz place. yuck

We love this place and save it for sacred events… I know we shouldn’t it’s a fabulous every day place. But if we have a celebration we come to Café Gratitude. If we need lifting we come to Café Gratitude. Every time we eat here we feel nourished and blessed. We are grateful for this space and the food that is served here. All vegan — no question.

I miss their old raw vegan menu :(The new one is ok and pretty yum but pretty basic and not quite as high vibe and delicious as their food used to be…

Whether you’re vegan or not this is just a great spot with great food. One of my friends got the black bean burger, another got the «beef» stroganoff polenta and I got the tacos. We all loved our food!!! I don’t even know what was in my tacos but they were super good on soft corn tortillas with a small side salad. I also ordered some sort of house made ginger drink that was super strong ginger– I could have drank a whole pitcher of that. I would totally go back next time I’m back in the area.

The first time I ate at Café Gratitude I ordered one of the specialty bowls and was not impressed. It was way too oily for my taste. My second visit was great. I ordered the Extraordinary BLT and like it’s name it was extraordinary. I had been craving a BLT and although it was vegan, I really couldn’t tell. I really enjoyed the sandwich and the side salad. My daughter had the Magical Bean Burger and thought it was delicious. She also had the Cool smoothie that is a mint chocolate chip milkshake (vegan of course), which was also really very good. We will be back.

–Awesome place
–The freshly squeezed juice was pretty good.
–Friendly staff.
–Nice ambience.

I absolutely LOVE this place. Especially around flu season because I love to getting their shot of brave. It’s almost impossible to get sick after having one of their immune-​boosting shot with turmeric, ginger, lemon, garlic clove, and cayenne.
Also their customer service is absolutely friendly. The male server Jethro is such a cutie!!! That handsome sir is always polite, friendly, and enthusiastic.

Holy vegan crap! Uhm did I really just eat ALL of my plate and it was vegan? And my dad… Mr. Meat-​and-​Potatoes? Yeah. Yeah. That happened.
My dad was the one who picked this place and he knew it was vegan. He actually wasn’t that thrilled the first time but his friend really loved it so he wanted to try it again. After he was done surfing the man had an appetite and off we went.
We were allowed to pick our seats and I love Windows so there we went, to the front. I giggled at the names of the items on the menu… holy hippie wow. I picked out some iced pressed coffee with a little almond milk as a beverage. It was strong. It kept me awake until one am. So if you need caffeine, get it.
The service was prompt and exceptional. I wish I knew our servers name but I can’t recall. He gets five stars for friendliness, attentiveness, and for being helpful.
So I ordered the I am Awesome (because with out em, it’s just aweso *cue drums*) which is a veggie sando. My dad had the I am Transformed which were two tacos and potatoes. The presentation of the food was phenomenal not to mention that it was flavorful and well cooked. We cleaned our plates. If I could had eaten that, I probably would have.
I’m thankful that my dad was willing to try this place again AND that there’s apparently a location in Berkeley. I hope that it’s as delicious with amazing service as the one in Santa Cruz. I’ll be sure to go back there the next time I’m there.

I didn’t get such great attention here. And I didn’t like the raw sushi. The sunflower pâté had a smoked taste, which I don’t care for. I would like to see more raw options, like a raw burger (with a raw patty and raw bun). The waitress made me wait quite a while, but when she came over to check on me, she was willing to give me the black bean burger as a replacement.
I ordered the «I am rejuvenated» beverage which has 1 ounce of wheatgrass. But I asked for extra ginger, and so I wasn’t actually able to taste the wheatgrass. So this beverage was delicious!
I was also disappointed that the menu was much smaller than the LA menu.

I’m disappointed that this place doesn’t have half the options the one in LA has! The menu felt limited compared to what I was spoiled in LA with.
I’m glad they have a spot here in the bay. Just wish they had the same menu offering. I especially miss I Am Mahalo!

Usually I would say I love it here. I did love it and all the food was delicious, but soon after our meal today both my friend and I had an upset stomach. We both walked in feeling great, so I think it had something so do with either the food or the water (water tasted pretty bad). The food tasted great! Who knows???
Also, they were busy but not so busy that I can justify being seated at a table and then not having anyone approach us for 10+ minutes until I got up and ask «what was taking so long» (in a very nice way)…
On a positive note, when our server did arrive he was friendly. So thank you for this. I’ll give an extra star for your kindness.
I will come back again next time I’m in Santa Cruz, but only because I’ve been a long time Café Gratitude fan and because I am grateful for the wonderful menu options.
If things improve on my next visit I’ll bump up to a 5star, but today I’ll have to give a 3. Love you Café Gratitude. :(