15 Years of Memories: Building at The Bridges

We built our Bridges location 11 years ago.

This photo at the top of the page? It’s a shot of our team announcing on Facebook the location of our new space.

Surrounded by stud walls and wiring, it was hard to imagine what it would look like in just a few short months.

And these photos?

Those are the things we wrote on the walls before the sheetrock was installed. It was so important to us that we covered the place in prayer, in encouragement, and in scripture verses. We loved leaving notes for our builders, thanking them for the spectacular space they were building for us and for our guests.

What a special time.

Our grand opening date was set for August 6, 2013. As construction projects often go, we were running up against so many deadlines and it was a nail-biter down to the final moments, wondering if the construction and inspections would be complete in time.

The windows had signs in them boldly proclaiming “August 6” as the opening date, and one of the crew joked with me that he was going to put a “1” in front of that “6” to give them ten days more time.

The day before grand opening, we still hadn’t had our electrical inspection, and we couldn’t turn on the ovens until that was complete. To say I was stressed is a vast understatement.

We were the last inspection on the docket for August 5th, and at 6 p.m. the night before opening, we finally fired up the ovens and baked the FIRST test batch of cupcakes in our new location. I savored that sweet bite of cupcake like I’d never enjoyed one before.

My mom and dad were there. The moment was surreal. I remember shedding many tears of joy as we all stood at the prep tables eating those first cupcakes.

The next morning, the doors opened and people flooded in.

In retrospect, that whole span of time was just one step on our lengthy and incredible journey, but at that time it felt like the ONLY step that mattered.

August 21st, 2009 is our official opening date. We will celebrate 15 years this year as a part of the Sioux Falls community.

But August 6, 2013? That was a pretty darn special day, too.