f you’re serious about your coffee, then it’s time you steered your attention toward the next bike courier you see, and follow him - over rough terrain, avoiding oncoming traffic, through bank lobbies - to his unofficial headquarters. It’s a given that you’ll wind up - perhaps not right away, but eventually - on Parliament Street, just south of Carlton.

Now, a coffee shop has to be superlative for us to suggest it's worth stalking a messenger over, but the now-classic Jet Fuel Coffee makes the recommendation easy, especially if you're not afraid of coffee with attitude.

"Do one thing and do it well" could be the mantra of Jet Fuel. The high-voltage experience begins right at the doorway, where clusters of smokers hang loose, lattes in hand, bantering at a feverish pitch. Step into the raw coffee shop and you’re greeted with a small, pumping art-gallery-ish space, offering simple, quality coffee, and not much more. You can get a Jet Fuel coffee (a latte), read the papers (there's plenty of room), and just chill. It's the brainchild of John Englar, whose aim is to pare things down and to have a little fun on top of it.

Jet Fuel wasn't born overnight. Jet Fuel started life in the late eighties as a sandwich truck, servicing the film industry. It was the film crews that named Johnny-Jet Fuel-Englar. Later, Englar’s first coffee bar location (that didn’t bear license plates) would be a 200 square-foot coffee bar within a bike store. The size of a postage stamp with two monstrous speakers on each wall. "It was like walking into a set of headphones!" says Englar.

When Jet Fuel opened in the current location in ë92, it was instantly a cool place to hang out, sanctioned by local couriers that made it their unofficial headquarters. But you didn't have to be a messenger to enjoy the nonconformist ambiance, good caffeine; at here, the emphasis was on slackerism and customers who knew each other’s regular time-slot.