Jet Fuel Coffee Shop Inc

They don’t serve decaf, and the guy out front lighting a cigarette with a match was “a little wilder ten years ago.” Jet Fuel Coffee has attitude — but that doesn’t mean it has an attitude problem, says owner Johnny Englar.

“There’s no menu,” Johnny notes. “Quite a few people find it intimidating or they think we’re trying to be rude or pretentious.” But the missing menu board isn’t about being pretentious; it’s just about not wanting to “have an ugly menu board and look like Burger King or McDonald’s,” Johnny insists. And besides, “a good espresso bar will make you anything you ask for,” he says.

And Jet Fuel certainly has a devoted following of die-hard regulars who know that if you can order without the help of a menu board, you can get a damn good cup of coffee at this Cabbagetown café.

“We have famous writers, high-ranking judges, a lot of fancy lawyers, and then just regular guys from the neighbourhood,” Johnny says, adding that famed Canadian novelist and poet Michael Ondaatje has thanked “the coffee shop” in about five of his books.