How do you capture the life of a city that’s constantly in flux? If you’re Ron Henggeler, you put it in a jar. Actually, thousands of them. 

For nearly half a century, Henggeler worked as a waiter at some of San Francisco’s most storied restaurants: Ernie’s, notable for its crepes suzette and appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”; the Franciscan, famous for tiered seating and panoramic bay views; and the Big 4 at the base of the Huntington Hotel, where he also served as in-house historian and decorator. 

All those landmarks are gone. 

But pieces of them live on — in Henggeler’s vast collection of glass jars. Tea labels and fruit pits from bygone meals, claws from crabs he served to diners 40 years ago, broken wine glasses — all are lovingly captured in oversize jars that once held maraschino cherries and martini olives, lifted from the restaurants where he worked. Jars upon jars line every surface of his five-level Queen Anne Victorian near Alamo Square. They’re organized by color, by texture and shape, or by theme and content.