The first steps inside uncover eclectic wooden rafters, an elongated room and a bar in the corner. Flat speakers spread along the walls, familiar faces and comfortable voices nurse their drinks and discuss tips of the trade, musician to musician. Then the bongo hits, and The Bridge is awake.

The Bridge is a recently established music venue in downtown Columbia, as well as home to the Columbia Academy of Music.

Ownership and management is attributed to Wes Wingate, Andrew Weir and Casey Conway. Wingate and Weir had been in and out of the music industry for years and looking for their next move when Conway introduced his business plan for a new kind of music hub in Columbia.

As a town full of fresh collegiate minds and styles, the music scene in Columbia is always original and contemporary. With this in mind, the three wanted to find a way to unify the isolated music teachers from around Columbia and the starving musicians in need of guidance and create a haven to smooth out the rough edges in their sounds. And so the Columbia Academy of Music was created.

Conway, Weir and Wingate, longtime musicians themselves, believed it essential to instill music skills and values as early and as expertly as possible. Beyond handing the students the education to grow in their talents, they wanted to provide the ideal environment for them to thrive in the classroom and in front of an audience.

Upon entering The Bridge, patrons find the venue nearly splits in half. The stage and bar are on the left and the offices and classrooms are down the hall to the right. The trio wanted to provide a space where the music students can learn from skilled professionals in top-notch classrooms on one side of the building, as well as experience an undeniable sense of fellowship jamming with their peers on the Bridge stage.

The Bridge has taken up the task of having performances every night, varying from Open Mic nights on Tuesdays to on-the-rise hometown bands looking for a new audience to connect with.

One Columbia band, Mary and the Giant, who has played at The Bridge as well as larger venues such as The Blue Note, have the utmost respect for a venue like The Bridge. The band’s drummer, Justin Mayfield, spoke a little about how immensely the group has cherished their time at The Bridge.

“We have been playing at The Bridge since its inception pretty much, so we’ve had an opportunity to watch it grow … and I can honestly say, The Bridge is remarkable,” he said in an email interview. “One of the things that is so nice about the venue is how dedicated they are to superior sound. Having two graduated sound engineers as owners has definitely paid off audibly.”

The slogan for The Bridge is “We are a venue built by musicians for musicians.” The building was specifically constructed to provide the most effective acoustics for audiences.

Smaller venues are usually viewed as the stepping stones for undiscovered bands to create a fan base and aid in creating a path to bigger gigs at larger venues, but for Mary and the Giant, playing at The Bridge is like coming home.

“At The Bridge, we’ve kind of developed a family and have always been warmly received by the owners,” Mayfield says. “(At larger venues) there isn’t the camaraderie between our band and the workers that we find so readily at The Bridge.”

The Bridge is celebrating its one-year anniversary with Bon Scott 5 and Don’t Mind Dying on March 17, and Mary and the Giant returns to The Bridge on March 30 with Tom Sauk and The Paperclips.

“We are stoked, as always, to be playing at the Bridge,” Mayfield says. “We have a very loyal fan base, and they tend to favor The Bridge over a lot of other venues we play. Something about the atmosphere and our energy there has a nice symbiosis.”

The Bridge is located at 1020 E. Walnut St. across from the Artlandish Gallery.