Cafe Rolle is closed, but William Rolle is still making sandwiches in Sacramento

William Rolle walks into Corti Bros.’ deli around 8 a.m. Thursday through Monday. He orders and cut cheeses from his native France, gossips with longtime east Sacramento customers, hops on the line to make a few sandwiches until his shift ends at 5 p.m.

Then he’s off to Sprouts Farmers Market in Land Park, where he prepares sandwiches from 5:45 to 10:30 p.m. among 18- and 19-year-olds. He’s tried listening to their music, browsing the websites where they buy clothes, even watching the anime they recommend. Not his thing.

Doctors told Rolle, 46, to slow down after suffering a minor stroke five years ago. Compared to his previous life as the owner of beloved French cafe Cafe Rolle, this new work schedule is copacetic, he said.

“As soon as I go home, it’s done. I don’t have to be worried, and when it’s my day off, it’s a real day off,” Rolle said. “You do your job, you go home, that’s it. I have no responsibility. People tell me what to do, I do it and I’m happy.”

Rolle grew up working at his parents’ deli in Lyon and attended culinary school before immigrating to a dude ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He enjoyed snowmobiling and riding horses but couldn’t handle the winter, so he joined an uncle in Sacramento a year later.

The cafe initially known as Rolle Salmon & Seafood opened at 5357 H St. in 2002. Some people thought it was a fish market, hence the name change.

Never backed by more than a server and a dishwasher, Rolle was a constant figure in Cafe Rolle’s kitchen and dining room, jovially greeting customers in between cutting baguettes and mixing salads. Rich, tasty sandwiches filled with duck pâté or melted brie or smoked salmon drew people from around Sacramento, as well as Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” in 2009.

As a Sacramento News & Review headline that same year put it, Cafe Rolle was “as French as it gets in Sacramento.” Listening to Rolle talk about his new job at Corti Bros., most of which involves ordering, storing and preparing cheeses, one could say the same thing about the man.

“I love cheese. I (was always) eating cheese in France. For me, doing cheese is easy-peasy, because I just bring the cheese from France to here and people love it,” Rolle said. “A piece of bread, a little cheese, a glass of red wine — that’s all you need. You don’t even need a girlfriend or a wife, just cheese and bread and that’s it.”

But the constant pressures of restaurant ownership — fridges malfunctioning, windows being broken overnight — wore on Rolle. He didn’t take vacations for five years at a time, and was burnt out well before suffering a stroke midway through lunch service in 2016.

A week of recovery in the hospital, and Rolle was back in the kitchen. Though few physical effects lingered, the stroke left him with heightened anxiety that flared up quickly at small burdens of ownership, he said.

Rolle kept pushing until he finally “hit a wall” in December 2019, he said. He took a month off to reevaluate Cafe Rolle’s future, then formally closed it in January 2020.

He spent months relaxing and progressively cleaning out the restaurant, with plans to vacation in France that were dashed by the pandemic. In April 2020, he went to work at Corti Bros., adding the Sprouts job in February 2021 to stave off boredom.

“Why do I do this? Because I’m bored (otherwise),” Rolle said. “I know it’s kind of crazy. My wife thinks it’s crazy. But right now, it keeps me busy.”

The prospect of owning his own restaurant again remains attractive, Rolle said. Maybe, maybe, Rolle will resuscitate the cafe one day. He’d be looking for a snug space around 500 square feet after the pandemic subsides, he said.

He’d take vacations, too. Doctor’s orders.