Ruben Barcenas, who goes by High Channel, recently opened a studio called High Channel Division on Atlantic Avenue in Lynwood. The studio was originally intended to serve as a clothing store solely, but is now home to a small cafe just behind a private tattoo studio.
“My whole theme for it was to be like Zumiez, but for the hood. For the community," Barcenas tells L.A. TACO. "I wanted to give a chance to those people who want to start a clothing brand.”
This spot quickly transcended clothing and now serves as a space for passersby to grab a new hat, get new ink, and devour a sweet treat immediately afterward.
“I wanted to do something different. I wanted to make sobriety attractive, in any type of way,” Barcenas says.
The vision for this space all began with Barcena's own sobriety and the tumultuous past that he’s long since recovered from.
Barcenas grew up in North Long Beach. Like many others who grew up in a tough environment, the absence of a father figure left a lasting impression on him during a crucial period.
“My dad passed away while he was intoxicated,” Barcena says. “He made a huge impact on my life. When I was 13 years old, he got into a car crash. Because of the crash, my uncle died, and he was arrested. It was automatically manslaughter.”
“He was in a coma while in custody—he never came out of that coma,” Barcena adds.
He says that losing his father changed him, causing him to turn to heavy drinking when he was 16 or 17, and the eventual recognition that he was an alcoholic. But the turning point towards a life of wellness and sobriety didn’t happen until after he became a father himself. Barcena says he quit cold turkey and never looked back.
Now at 35, Barcena's been sober for almost six years, although he says that he doesn’t keep count.
“Once I change my mindset, that’s it,” he says. “I’m not going back. I started my new life.”
When Barcena's first started cleaning up and fixing the shop, he says the other aspects of the space slowly introduced themselves in layers: He knew he loved coffee and matcha, so he decided to turn the back of the space into a small cafe, with flavored matchas as the main highlight.
Barcena is also a fan of ink, and asked a good friend of his, Rene Zambrano, if he would be interested in utilizing one of the small office spaces to tattoo in.
“Everything is an extension of me,” Barcena says. “I love clothing; I love tattoos. Coffee is a part of me. Some people turn to sobriety and turn into huge coffee drinkers.”
As for the matcha?
L.A. TACO tried the "kookie butter matcha" with oat milk. It was rich in flavor, and the fresh matcha was complemented by a thick and velvety cookie-based butter. Not only did we scrape it out of the cup with our fingers and leave a clean cup, but we went back to buy another one.
Aside from matcha, they have a kids' menu that includes “Fruity Pebble milk” and he also sells iced espressos flavored with churros and mazapan.
His wife, Evelyne Puente, took her own leap of faith to kick-start the cafe. Just a year ago, Evelyne was working a 9-to-5 while doing lash tech work on the side to make extra money.
She left her old job to start an externship as an MRI technologist while continuing to do house calls for lash extensions. After she finished her externship and got her first job, she discovered her love of making coffee and now runs the cafe.
The creation of this shop has had its ups and downs. Barcenas says he shaped up the shop himself by gathering the art and paintings and even fixing the front window on three separate occasions after people kept breaking it. He ended up adding a sliding sheet door.
“Having my window broken . . . I didn’t let it break me,” Barcenas says. “That was just a lesson. I always preach that to everybody: ‘Keep going—you make your own circumstances; your circumstances don’t make you.’ It hit me, it slapped me in the face. I had to put that to work.”
Recently, the shop hosted a fundraiser, donating proceeds accumulated by Money Motive Cutz, Macholada (with a sober alternative), the tattoo shop, the included clothing brands, and the cafe to go towards school supplies and backpacks for kids and teenagers.
Starting next month, Barcenas will host a night on the last Saturday of each month to encourage sober people from all walks of life to enjoy matcha and find a sanctuary away from crowded bars and clubs that are rooted in excessive drinking.
“I don’t like to put labels on it; I think that pushes [people] away,” Barcenas says. “This is a sober, matcha night-type thing. When I first started to get sober, I had nowhere to go. I had to reinvent myself.”
The unique styling of this studio reeled me in. I spent at least five hours at the shop on the day of the fundraiser. I had two matchas, spoke with the clothing owners, and nearly got a new tattoo.
“People don’t see the sober; they see the matcha,” Barcenas says. “They see some dope clothing. Undercover wellness. It’s how I approach everything.”
High Channel Division ~ 11683 Atlantic Ave. Lynwood, CA 90262
