Alder & Sage Blooms in Wake of a Lost Piece of Long Beach History

Enter Scott Ross, a longtime Portfolio regular (hot chocolate was his go-to) and area property owner with whom Kansteiner (in her capacity as president of the 4th Street Business Association) had dealt in regards to his parking lot at 4th & Cherry. “Pretty late in the game I was like, ‘Maybe I should call him.’”

When she did, Ross informed her that the Carousel Preschool space was available. “He said, ‘I couldn’t envision anything better than having you as my tenant.’”

She signed the lease in April 2022 and, with van Dijs as her ace-in-the-hole (his JR van Dijs Construction Management is responsible for the Edison Lofts and rehabilitation of the Lafayette and the Art Theatre, among several other downtown Long Beach projects), they immediately went to work transforming 366 Cherry into more than she hoped for. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I could [get] this,” she says, spreading her arms in appreciation of all that surrounds her.

But however much she hoped to transfer aspects of Portfolio’s spirit into this healthy new body, she never considered keeping the old name. “A lot of people were mad that I’m not calling this ‘Portfolio,’” she says. “But I can’t call it that because clearly this is not Portfolio and never will be. It had to be a different name.” quired and put her on a month-to-month basis, which allowed him to raise the rent beyond the yearly 3% allowed by the extension. Kansteiner claims a sort of harassment ensued (“torture by a thousand needles”), including bogus reports to the City of Long Beach that Portfolio was out of compliance with various codes (Salemi confirms filing the reports, alleging violations related to an improper kitchen remodel). A protracted legal battle ensued, during which Kansteiner says she spent roughly $140,000 in legal fees and suffered rent increases totaling 28% by 2021.

She recalls reaching a breaking point one day sitting at her kitchen table with husband Jan van Dijs. “‘I can’t do this anymore,’” she told him. “‘[…] Even though my attorney says I’m going to win, emotionally I cannot do this anymore.’ Jan said, ‘That’s what [Salemi] wants you to do. But this is wrong, and if we have to we’ll put every dollar of our savings on the line. We’re going to see this through.’ Had he not set me straight, I think I would have given up.”

(Salemi says that by 2017 “it just wasn’t working out. […] But Kerstin is a great person. She’ll do really well with [Alder & Sage]. It was just time to move on.”)

In June 2021, Salemi and Kansteiner reached a settlement which Kansteiner regarded as a clear victory, including an allowance for Portfolio to operate rent-free for what would have been the remaining 13 months of the 2017 lease extension.

But needless to say, this would be Portfolio’s last hurrah.

“By the end, I was just so tired,” she recounts. “I couldn’t even celebrate [the victory]; I just wanted to throw up. […] In some sense there was no winning. I thought I was going to have to let [all my employees] go. To live with that for another year — knowing that I was going to have to close, going to work every day looking at these people who are making plans for the future…. I honestly thought, ‘This is it. I know 4th Street, and there’s no place I can move my business; and there’s no other place I want to be.’”

She did, however, rehire any and all employees who wanted to embark on this new venture, and she’s overwhelmed with how all of them, along with the customers — regardless of how long they’ve been part of Kansteiner’s journey — are starting a new tradition in the best sense of the old.

“I have employees here who were not born when Portfolio opened, were not there when we were smoking cigarettes behind the counter late at night. I don’t think they’re even familiar with that culture,” she says. “It’s a new generation, but they still appreciate the thing that I’ll very loosely call ‘community’ that Portfolio created. It’s still here. It’s different from what it was, but the feeling of having a safe place, belonging, being able to go somewhere and just be, maybe strike up a conversation with somebody or just sit in a corner, it’s still here — and it made me very happy to see that these past three days. There are people who came in and stood in line and maybe had never talked to each other but recognized each other from Portfolio and said, ‘Oh my god, I remember you!’ We’re together; that’s still here. Can Portfolio be revived? Absolutely not. But it can be different and still create community. […] Whatever happened at Portfolio, that should not be the measure of success here. I can only move forward and say, ‘Here is this new thing.’”

Check out that new thing, Alder & Sage, at 366 Cherry Ave., Long Beach. Current hours are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., but for up-to-date hours and menu listings, visit aldersage.com