Reaching out to a new generation

Jacquelyn’s Café has been a fixture on Louisiana Avenue in Shreveport since 1983. Nestled amidst the service businesses, a smattering of other food places and a historic midtown Shreveport neighborhood, the lunch-only eatery has recently been sprucing up to prepare for a new generation of fans as it enters its 40th year.

Several years ago, the original Jacquelyn and her husband, Jimmy, decided to retire, and they initially thought of closing down the quaint lunch spot. It wasn’t long before Grant Nuckolls and his partner, Andrew Crawford, heard the news.

“I was a customer there,” Nuckolls said of the cafe. “At the time [the Caskeys] were not thinking about selling.

They were just going to close it down and retiring and go out on a high note. I told Andrew what I was thinking about doing, and he said he was thinking about doing the same thing.”

That thing was saving the café from closing, which they did. Since then, they’ve been working to make some subtle but progressive changes.

“We’ve poured quite a lot into the building. We repainted inside and out, added new fans and light fixtures, [put in] gravel across the street and restriped the parking lot. Other than that, we’ve tried to walk the line of keeping the quaint old building.

“[We] put in a website and delivery, some social media. The goal was to get our generation in there. We had to. Many of the customers had, unfortunately, gotten old.”

They added Crawford’s Rhino coffee to the menu and put in a grab-and- go cooler so patrons could take some of their signature dishes home for dinner or the weekend. Other than that, the building remains unchanged, and the menu is intact.

“Louisiana Avenue reminds me so much of the Garden District. It’s got the history, the architecture, the mix of businesses and homes, a streetcar used to actually run down Louisiana [Avenue], so I’ve always been real fond of that street.

“I’m an ardent believer in Shreveport.

When you’re in the hospitality business, until the pie grows for us – meaning population – we’ll be growing our own pie. When we see something that makes sense, as long as we’ve got the bandwidth, we’ll go after it.”

For more information, visit https://www.jacquelynscafe.com.

Jacquelyn’s has retained its menu of comfort food and Southern staples