There’s been a grocery store where Olalla Valley Road and Crescent Valley Road join, on the lip of Colvos Passage, for more than 100 years.

For much of the past half-century, that site belonged to Al’s, an Olalla institution that closed in 2010 after the Robbecke family, whose patriarch founded the store and gave it its name, could not maintain it anymore after Al’s son, John, struggled with health problems. The store reopened for a short time in 2011 with different owners before it again succumbed to closure, but it has new life under Colby Kenfield’s ownership.

“The store’s been through quite a spell over the past five years,” said Kenfield, who reopened the grocery in August as Al’s Olalla Public Store. The same old “Al’s” sign hangs over the front door, although it technically doesn’t belong to him any more.

“But I’m not going to change it,” Kenfield said. “It’d be stupid to.”

Tradition runs deep at Al’s – Kenfield, who grew up in Port Orchard, remembers visiting the store as a child for Fourth of July celebrations and the annual Polar Bear jump into the Sound.

“I used to come out here all the time,” he said.

The Polar Bear jump has continued on a small scale during the store’s closure, Kenfield said, but it’s one of the many community traditions he hopes to grow and revive as the refurbishment continues. He had been kicking around the idea of investing in the store for a while, as his career as an apprentice to fine artists was hampered by several costly leg surgeries. When an opportunity to line up money for investment came to him last winter, he seized the chance.

The store didn’t open until August as Kenfield wrestled with the Kitsap County’s permitting process.

“We only caught the tail end of the summer,” Kenfield said.

That hurt the fledgling business, and the store still isn’t licensed to sell beer, liquor, tobacco or lottery tickets, all of which Kenfield said can make up two-thirds of a grocery’s sales revenue. The state’s switch from public to private liquor licensing is part of the reason for the delay, Kenfield said.

“But we were close to breaking even with just groceries,” he said of the store’s first few months. “That’s the reason I believe this place could do really well.”

Support from the Olalla community has been crucial in the store’s reopening, Kenfield said. Although the location has had some trouble in the past few years, its legacy in the area has created a bond with customers that keeps people coming back as Kenfield works to restore the grocery to its former state.

He has big plans for the future, including the complete renovation of an old post office building on the property that has fallen into disrepair. Kenfield thinks the building could be designated as a historic site and reopened as a restaurant and pub.

There’s a lot of work to be done before that can happen, as the process of renovation faces obstacles of permitting and rehabilitating. Kenfield said he and his staff members cleaned four 55-pound bags worth of pigeon droppings out of the old building when they first started repairs, for example.

Kenfield hopes to offer kayak rentals, boat gas service and exclusively grown local vegetables from a friend’s garden by next summer. He’s put a small greenhouse in the front of the store for customers to collect herbs, and he plans to restart the store’s popular butcher shop.

“We’re really just trying to be a podunk country store,” Kenfield said.

Eventually, Kenfield wants the store to become the fully functional community gathering place that Al’s once was, and that many in the Olalla valley remember.

“That’s what it used to be, and it just needs a little push to get back there,” he said. “It’s more the community’s store than it is mine.”