Margaret A. ‘Margie’ Kafka, third-generation head of Baltimore sausage maker Polock Johnny’s, dies

Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun
·4 min read

Margaret A. “Margie” Kafka, the third-generation family member to head Baltimore’s venerable Polish sausage eateries Polock Johnny’s, died of septic shock April 28 at Grand Strand Medical Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The former Canton resident was 69.

Margaret Agnes Kafka, daughter of John Francis Kafka and Margaret Alice Fuhrer Kafka, was born in Baltimore. She was raised in Woodlawn and Randallstown.

Ms. Kafka graduated in 1974 from the old Seton Keough High School where she was in the drama club, played badminton and bowled.

The same year she graduated from high school, she graduated from the Barbizon Modeling and Acting School.

But it was the family business that her grandfather, John C. Kafka, who established the sausage business in the 1920s in a penny arcade on The Block in Baltimore’s red-light district, that caught her attention.

“It was the elder Mr. Kafka who changed the name to “Polock Johnny’s” after discovering that the pinball fanatics at the arcade were willing to pay for the plump, juicy hot dogs with ‘the works’ — a mixture of onions, relish, hot sauce and sauerkraut,” The Sun reported in 1986.

In spite of the business’s name, the Kafka family is not Polish, but from Bohemia, located in what is today the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

It was Ms. Kafka’s father, John F. Kafka — called “Polock Johnny” — who succeeded the elder Mr. Kafka in 1966, and expanded the business that grew to “18 stands, a sausage manufacturing company, two Fast Eddies chicken places, a steak restaurant and a bakery,” according to The Sun article.

Its customer base ranged from judges, lawyers, stockbrokers and business people enjoying a quick lunch, to off-duty strippers, cabdrivers, cops, newspaper workers, drinkers and other denizens of the night who stopped in for a sausage before calling it a day and heading home.

Polock Johnny’s billed their sausage sandwiches as the “Un-Burger,” and it was said they trained Baltimoreans to embrace heartburn.

Ms. Kafka joined her father and brothers in the business while still in high school, working Saturdays, holidays and during summer breaks.

“As I slipped on my apron and hat I kept thinking to myself, ‘God, I love this place,'” Ms. Kafka said in an online profile of Polock Johnny’s.

She went to work full time in the hot dog stand after graduating from high school and rose through the ranks to supervisor, managed stores around the city and its Lexington Market operation that opened in 1968, and eventually as head of the company.

“Along with Faidley Seafood, Mary Mervis and Park’s Fried Chicken, Polock Johnny’s was one of the best-known lunch stops in the Lexington Market,” former Sun restaurant critic Richard Gorelick wrote in 2011.

When her father died in 1986, a brother, John F. Kafka Jr., took over the family business.

“She had worked in every facet of the business over the years, enjoying the customer interaction the most,” her daughter, Maria Moore, of Myrtle Beach, wrote in a biographical profile. “She was a ham and loved to make a show when serving customers.”

“She had a great love for Polock Johnny’s and was so much fun to be around,” said longtime friend Georgia B. Corso.

“She was a wonderful person and was very good to her employees. She would do anything for them and she’d say, ‘They mean the world to me.'”

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After she was fired in 1989 as president of the company’s board, she worked as an interior designer.

In 1992, she became owner of Polock Johnny’s, which today has one stand at its company headquarters on North Point Road in Edgemere. The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1993. It continues to sell its products through restaurants, bars, grocery stores and other retail outlets.

“She would not retire,” her daughter said in a telephone interview. “She never gave up her administrative work for Polock Johnny’s.”

A stylish dresser, Ms. Kafka was known as being something of a “fashionista,” her daughter said, and for her hats.

“Margie was a beautiful and gorgeous woman, and had so much energy and motivation,” Ms. Corso said.

“She always had something to do,” her daughter said.

She took classes at Notre Dame of Maryland University, refinished antique furniture and did do-it-yourself projects, her daughter said.

In the 1980s, she began acting in the area and enjoyed attending the theater in Baltimore and New York.

“She loved classical music and we went to concerts at the [Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall] a lot,” Ms. Corso said.

A religious person, she read the Bible daily and liked listening to gospel music, her daughter said.

Ms. Kafka moved to Myrtle Beach in 2020 to be near her daughter and grandchildren.

Plans for a celebration of life gathering to be held in Baltimore in June are incomplete.

In addition to her daughter, Ms. Kafka is survived by two brothers, John F. Kafka Jr., of Canton, and James Edward Kafka, of California; and three grandchildren. Two marriages ended in divorce.