2:50pm | Long Beach works best when it works with its own. Take, for example, the revered Retro Row along 4th: unplanned by the city and headed by locals, it continues to be an example of how small, local businesses can truly shape and shift the Long Beach economy.
For it’s second year in existence, the Small Business Saturday initiative was created by American Express to help foster and create a sense of contribution to those that help make cities unique — mainly small business owners who are local and care for and about their community. As the slogan of the initiative succinctly puts it, “When we all shop small, it will be huge.”
This point is emphasized by business owner Kerstin Kansteiner, who recently told the Long Beach Post, “Small and especially independent businesses build communities. In times of economic downturn it is so very important to create that sense of of shopping local and supporting a community.” Her highly popular and successful Portfolio Coffeehouse, one of the most known establishments in the city, helped alter the entire area of 4th Street between Junipero and Cherry avenues.
She has taken that success and transplanted to the East Village Arts (EVA) District, where she opened Berlin this year, a combination coffeehouse and restaurant that shares space with famed local recordstore, Fingerprints. She hopes to see the same revival that her and other small businesses did for Retro Row in the EVA. “What I hope to see with Berlin is exactly what happened with Portfolio: a strengthening of our walking districts that, in return, creates safety and prosperity for our neighborhoods.”
Many neighborhoods are partaking in the initiative, including the East Village Arts District, 4th Street Retro Row, Cambodia Town, and Bixby Knolls. For more information, visit www.smallbusinesssaturday.com.
Correction: This article originally called the East Village Arts District the ‘East Arts Village District.’