Last week I met Nicole Jacobi for coffee. She is one of the co-owners of Ludwig’s German Table. Nicole is from Northern Germany and came to the Bay Area 16 years ago. This is Nicole’s story of how she opened one of the best places for German food in the Bay Area: Ludwig’s San José.
The path to her own restaurant
Nicole grew up in a village close to Hamburg. Her family’s love to cook and bake for frequent social gatherings has shaped Nicole’s quality of being a great host decisively. After finishing school in Germany, Nicole did an apprenticeship in the hotel business (Hotelfachfrau) in Zeven, a town between Hamburg and Bremen. Afterwards, she worked in different hotels in Stuttgart, Switzerland and London.
Being back in Germany, Nicole run her own café “Don Camillo” in Harsefeld from 1996 to 1998. After passing it on to new tenants, she worked for the Steigenberger Group in sales. Her last job in Germany was for the startup Eprofessional which hired her for a sales position. During a company event, Nicole met her future husband on a sailboat on the Baltic Sea.
Even though Nicole states that the US was never a country she considered living in, she moved for love to Menlo Park, California in 2002. She worked at her husbands startup, Creative Weblogging, they got married in 2005 and had twins in 2007.
A German food connoisseur
Two years later Nicole pursued her passion, the innate joy for food, once more and launched her own catering service Gourmet Lunch, which offered a wide variety of tasty and healthy food delivered to your doorstep. In 2014 she started working for the Children’s Discovery Museum in San José, where she opened and operated the restaurant Food Shed. With their mutual enthusiasm for fresh, healthy and homemade food they created the concept to “eat like a rainbow every day”.
Nicole had been thinking about a German restaurant for a while. During her time working at the Food Shed, the German club Germania approached her and asked if she would want to open a typical German eatery on their premises, a beautiful victorian house in San José downtown. But the timing wasn’t right for Nicole yet.
Ludwig’s San José
Shortly thereafter, she met Ben Bate, through a mutual friend. Ben had just moved from England to the Bay Area and hadn’t had a job yet. When he learned about the opportunity of opening a restaurant, he was immediately excited. Ben became the driving force behind the opening of Ludwig’s San José. He always encouraged her that they could make it work. Nicole and Ben signed the lease with Germania in October 2015 and Ludwig’s opened its doors in June 2016, just in time for the European Soccer Championships. The location and setting of the restaurant are perfect. It has a beautiful German-style Biergarten and Nicole decorated the interior in a very tasteful, modern, yet cozy way. You find community tables all through the restaurant and for bigger events like Oktoberfest, Christkindlmarkt and the upcoming UEFA World Cup they can use the big hall of Germania as well.
Delicious food and catering
Ludwig’s offers all kind of German beers on draft and bottled, even Kölsch which is very important for us ;-). On the menu you’ll find two different kind of Schnitzel, Currywurst, Brezeln, Kassler, Gulasch, Kässpätzle and many more German delicacies. Another specialty of Ludwig’s San José are the „Kuchen” (cakes) and starting this Sunday, April 1st 2018 weekend brunch is coming back to Ludwig’s.
Deutsche Küche ist Glück, ist Liebe, ist Heimkommen.
German cuisine is happiness, is love, is like coming home.
Ludwig’s San José is located at 261 North 2nd Street and is open Wednesday through Sunday. It opens at 4pm on weekdays and now from 10am on the weekend for brunch, Kaffee & Kuchen starting at 2pm and then dinner menu with specials from Friday to Sunday.
It is a pleasure knowing Nicole. She is such a creative, hard-working and inspiring woman and I enjoy our conversations very much. Thank you so much for meeting and sharing your wonderful story with me! See you at Ludwig’s for brunch!
The coffee place
Nicole and I met at the Coffeebar on Chestnut Street in Menlo Park. The cafe is one of five Coffeebar’s locations and the first outside of the Tahoe area. The owner Greg Buchheister opened his first cafe in Truckee, California in 2010. Coffeebar has its own ethos and its philosophy is to cultivate sustainable local partnerships.
Community is the family you choose. Our family is comprised of dedicated farmers, bicycle-riding composters, organic gardeners, vibrant artists, and renegade creators. We’re dedicated to celebrating their crafts and raising the bar of sustainability through excellent food & coffee.
