What is Paula Jacqueline Cakes & Pastries?
Most of the storefronts on Marshall Way sell art. Suite 8 at 4151 N Marshall Way sells cake, and teaches children how to make it.
Paula Jacqueline Cakes & Pastries is a small, woman-owned and operated bakery tucked into a suite in the middle of Old Town’s gallery district. It works three ways. There is a counter, open a few days a week, with macarons, cupcakes, cake by the slice, brownies and seasonal treats. There is the custom work, the heart of the business, with celebration and wedding cakes and pastries made to order, including vegan, kosher and gluten-free versions. And there is the kitchen as classroom: baking classes for kids, summer camps, birthday parties and team-building events.
The classes are what set it apart. Children from about 5 to 16 learn a new technique and a new recipe in each session, which turns a bakery into something closer to a neighborhood activity center.
It is not a cafe, and it is not a place to sit for an hour. It is a specialist shop on a street of specialists, which is exactly what Marshall Way has always been good at.
Buying, ordering and booking
Check the hours first. The counter is open Wednesday through Saturday, with shorter hours on Saturday, and closed the rest of the week. That makes it a destination, not an impulse; plan around it.
Shop the case. The macarons are the easiest thing to carry around the galleries, and a cake slice or cupcake is the right afternoon treat. Decorating kits and dessert bars can be ordered for parties, and the bakery takes online orders through its site for pickup.
Order custom cakes early. Wedding and celebration cakes are made to order, and the dietary options (vegan, kosher, gluten-free) are the reason many customers find the bakery in the first place. Email or order through the site with as much lead time as you can.
Book the classes. Classes, kid camps, birthday parties and team builders are booked online and can fill up, so book ahead. If you are visiting with children for a week, a morning class leaves the adults free to walk Marshall Way and the galleries, then everyone meets for lunch at Schmooze up the street or for an early dinner at Ponderosa House on the corner. Adults have a different reward nearby: Los Milics started its Old Town tasting room in this same complex in 2024.
Small shops on the gallery street
Marshall Way’s character comes from size. The street filled with galleries from the 1960s, when the artists’ colony on Main Street and Fifth Avenue spilled around the corner, and it has stayed a street of small, owner-run storefronts ever since. Wilde Meyer Gallery, which arrived in 1983 when this stretch had no galleries at all, is the standard example: a family business that helped turn the block into a destination. Thursday’s ArtWalk, running since 1975, gave all of these shops a weekly crowd.
A bakery and baking school fits that pattern. The street rewards specialists who make things by hand and are willing to explain how, whether the product is a bronze or a cake. It also fills a practical gap. Old Town has plenty of places to drink and to eat dinner, but far fewer that serve families during the day, and a kitchen that runs camps and birthday parties brings a different kind of visitor to the gallery blocks.
The complex at 4151 N Marshall Way is a good picture of how the street has changed in the 2020s. A winery’s first Old Town tasting bar opened here in 2024; a bakery teaches children in the same building; the galleries are steps away. It is mixed, small-scale and local, the opposite of the big nightlife buildings a few blocks east.
The honest assessment: Paula Jacqueline is a niche business with short hours, and visitors who drop by on a Monday will find it closed. But for a custom cake, a box of macarons for a Thursday night, or a week of baking classes for the kids, it is one of the more useful small shops on Marshall Way.