Hanging above a cream-colored flat white inside a new Capitol Hill coffee shop are strands of purple and green climbers rope attached to rectangular light fixtures.
The design is a replica of Purple Door Coffee’s logo, a dotted passageway.
“Everyone’s journey is different and we recognize that,” said Matt Wallace, executive director and founder of Purple Door Coffee. “We want people to choose to walk through the door.”
Purple Door Coffee officially opened the doors to its new location on March 14.
The shop does more than just serve up tasty coffee. Purple Door's job readiness program is designed to train and employ Denver’s unhoused teens and young adults and equip them with the soft skills needed to exit life on the streets.
Purple Door, past and present
The original Five Points location of Purple Door Coffee opened in 2013 and later closed in 2019.
The company had spread itself too thin. The company decided to refocus its efforts on its Englewood-based coffee roastery, which moves around 350 pounds of beans to various coffee shops, office spaces and churches across the country.
Purple Door Coffee is an employment social enterprise supported by its parent organization Dry Bones Denver, a nonprofit that seeks to meet the emotional, spiritual and physical needs of young people with experience living on the streets.
Based on the Biblical story of bringing life out of death and despair, Dry Bones Denver offers social support like accompanying someone to a court date or a dentist appointment, providing professional therapy sessions, life coaching and psychiatric referrals as needed and job-training programs like Purple Door roastery and now their returning coffee shop.
“There’s hope here,” Wallace said. “We don’t preach at anyone and that is a core value.”
The shop currently employs 4 full-time employees for a non-tipped minimum wage plus tips. Over the years it has mentored 45 graduates of their job training program, ages 16 through 30.
Their roastery employees start at minimum wage and can ask for raises.
Welcome to the neighborhood
Purple Door's new location is now in the North Capitol Hill neighborhood just two blocks north of the Colorado State Capitol.
The shop shares a building with the Central Presbyterian Church, an organization with like-minded missions for helping Denver’s poor and unhoused communities that is also home to the Heartbeat Denver Men’s Shelter.
The coffee shop is easily accessible to the nearby foot traffic and downtown office spaces near and along Sherman Street. Purple Door could also one day reap the benefits of Downtown Denver Partnership’s long-delayed $7 million, 5,280-mile trail project.
Wallace is still thinking of ways to replicate the original purple door facade from their Five Points location.
The color purple was chosen based on its association to "royalty," intended to inspire a sense of worth and value for anyone who walks through their door.
“Coffee shops are where the community comes together: eye-to-eye, soul-to-soul, person-to-person,” Wallace said.
The new location has ties to an old friend
Opening in Capitol Hill was only a matter of time.
Years ago, a former job-training graduate, Sateva Wiles, pitched a silent auction fundraiser for the organization. That event led to a connection to the vacant space that is now the new Purple Door.
Describing Wiles as a “soft soul,” Wallace met her on the corner of Colfax and Broadway panhandling on the street when she was just 14 years old. Clean and sober for five years, Wiles relapsed and died of a fentanyl overdose — a reminder of the overwhelming need to continuously meet people where they are.
“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her,” Wallace said, holding back tears. “My dream is that this place someday is completely run by Purple Door graduates. I want people to connect with the story of what this space represents.”
