After 46 years making every dish, restaurateur Jacqueline Margulis recalls the love of her culinary labor.

For more than 40 years, on an old back street in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, Jacqueline Margulis’ culinary obsession has made her little French restaurant the only one in the United States focused entirely — and exquisitely — on soufflés.

Each morning since the mid 1970s, passersby watched in wonder as the tiny French woman hauled in cartons upon cartons of eggs for the day’s soufflés. With no website, and no way to get in touch with staff, the only way to get a seat among the nine tables in Jacqueline’s tiny café was to leave a telephone message and hope. 

Now 90 years old, Jacqueline made every soufflé by hand — whether savory, like the Gruyère or lobster, or sweet, like her famed chocolate and strawberry soufflés. And each one was an act of love, and labor: whisked and prepared by hand, with the entire dining experience clocking in at around three hours per table. 

“There was pizza, a Chinese restaurant, a Japanese restaurant, but no speciality soufflés only,” Jacqueline remembers. “Of course, everyone was saying, ‘It will not work.’ And it stayed the same all of these 46 years. I did not change the menu. Nothing.”

Alongside her longtime manager, Matthew Weimer, Jacqueline has been a force of nature and a staple of exquisite San Francisco food for nearly half a century. Yet this January, Jacqueline decided to close the doors. In a comment to the San Francisco Chronicle, Jacqueline shared: “It had to happen sooner or later. I will miss” the restaurant.

We wish her a happy retirement. Celebrate the legacy of the iconic Café Jacqueline in this week’s GrandPeople feature.

Watch on Instagram

—Kate Rarey. Video by Laura Tejero.

---

GrandPeople chronicles the stories of older adults living purposeful, fun and meaningful lives.