High Octane opens second shop in Austintown

AUSTINTOWN

For High Octane Coffee founder Joe Sylvester, coffee has always played a role in a lifestyle centered on automobiles.

The artisan coffee franchise opened its newest location Monday at 890 N. Canfield-Niles Road. Its latest shop brings the original’s aesthetic, integrating items often found in a mechanic’s garage into the decor, and brings them as car-themed drink names.

As a professional motorsports athlete, Sylvester said his work regimen requires a lot of caffeine. Coffee became a staple in nights in the garage working on cars, and trips to races across the country and in Europe.

At first, he said, the coffee found in gas stations, the kind brewed in large quantities, was all he drank. That was until he tried small batch, artisan coffee.

“After that the other stuff tasted like drinking hot water,” he said. “When you taste what coffee’s actually supposed to taste like, you don’t want to have the stuff in the gas station.”

Sylvester has raced off-road trucks, dirt track cars, motorcycles and holds a Guinness World Record for longest ramp jump in a monster truck. Every weekend he competes in regional dirt track races. On top of that, he learned how to brew small batch coffee.

Read more about him and his coffee shop in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.