As a child, M’Liss Bierlink loved to play store. She would transform her bedroom into a boutique shop, lining her teddy bears and dolls along the shelves before announcing to her family that she was open for business.

[blockquote quote="We love hearing, ‘You never know what you’re going to find here.’" source="M’Liss Bierlink, owner of Sister to Sister" align="right" max_width="300px"]

Her love of boutique stores never faded, and 30 years later, during a trip to Mount Vernon, Bierlink and her mother stopped by a gift shop that changed her life.

“When we talked to the owner, she said she loved what she did, but she really loved mentoring the kids and people that she hired. The employees and customers became extensions of her friends and family,” Bierlink said. “She talked about her love of the Lord and her fellow human beings, and I was like, ‘That is exactly how I feel.’”

When a storefront became available in downtown Prosser, Bierlink wanted to open up a shop like the one she came across in Mount Vernon, but doubt plagued her.

“I was talking to a friend, and I was like, ‘I want to do this, but I’m afraid. What if nobody comes.’ All the what-ifs,” she said. “And Patty Fergus — my friend who has a heart of gold and is very encouraging — she said, ‘I believe in you.’”

Fergus believed in her so much that she spoke with the landlord of the space Bierlink had been eyeing. Then, Fergus and Bierlink’s husband, Ken, sat her down for the big news.

“She said, ‘We want to talk to you about something. I want you to know I believe in you to the point where I told the landlord you’re going to take it. And I believe in you so much, I paid your first three months’ rent. The only thing I ask is that you pay it forward,’” Bierlink recalled.

On July 10, 2004, Bierlink opened Sister to Sister in downtown Prosser. The 720-square-foot boutique store featured home décor and body and bath items and did well enough to stay afloat.

“The people in Prosser were so good to me, but we needed to decide whether to go bigger,” she said, explaining that she felt drawn to a machine shop near the rest stop just off of Interstate 82. “I told my husband, ‘I feel like God has me going right there in that spot.’ I would drive by and lift my hand over the area and say a little prayer. And when I saw them starting to take the business down, I was like, ‘What?’ So I pulled in and spoke to someone and asked what was going on. They said it was bought by business investors and they were going to be putting in a strip mall.”

Bierlink spoke with the landlord, and secured a spot at 10 Merlot Drive, Suite B.

“When we got the building, it was a cement slab. We were able to come in and figure out what we were going to do, and I had a pile of ideas at my house, so I knew the colors I wanted, the flooring, lighting—I had it ready to go. The shelves above the windows that I have in the store, for example, all of that was in the files,” she said, adding that her husband, who’s a contractor by trade, made the shelves. “I am blessed to have a husband where if I can articulate it, he can build it.”

Sister to Sister opened at its new location in 2006, the day after Thanksgiving—the same day the Starbucks in the adjacent suite opened.

Bierlink has one full-time employee and nine part-timers who work around their school sports and seasonal schedules.

Bierlink continues to carry the same variety of home and gift items she had at the downtown store. However, when she moved to Merlot Drive, she added food to the mix.

“My husband and I were lying in bed, and he’s just about to fall asleep and I said, ‘What do you think about gelato?’ I wanted a kitchen in the store to do samplings, and I said, ‘I want something where families can come in and have a little fun. Gelato is a premium ice cream without all the fat, and it’s very dense. My husband said, ‘Where are you going to find that?’ And so I started trying different brands and then I ran across the one we ended up choosing,” she said. “It’s hormone free, and the cookie bits and caramel sauces are all from scratch.”

Carrying clothing was never an option in Bierlink’s mind until she went to a tradeshow in Las Vegas called the Magic Apparel Show, which featured clothing, shoes and accessories.

“And we walked in, and I was like, ‘Oh Mylanta.’ It was not the show for us,” she said.

At that point, Sister to Sister didn’t even have a dressing room, but her husband encouraged her to give clothes a try. After collecting a few pieces, Bierlink returned home and revamped a space in the back of the store for people to try on outfits. The styles were so well received that when gift shop next door became vacant in 2012, Bierlink and her husband decided to expand.

“I didn’t want to take out the whole wall between the two spaces. I wanted it to have a different feel,” she said of renovating the space. “It has the same coloring on the walls and ceiling, but it’s a different feel, so you knew you were coming into a different space. I thought the way to do that was to have wide doors going in. It took my husband about a month—we’d come down here at night after work and work on it together. The last couple of days we closed the store completely because we had to cut out the space for the doors, then I redid that side completely in two days. It was already painted, but we had to do all the displays. Luckily I have great staff.”

Today, Sister to Sister sells about 60 different lines of clothing, and almost exclusively Chinese Laundry shoes. Bierlink has a philosophy that everything in the store has to earn its square footage. The men’s clothing section, for example, has been phased out, but home décor and women’s clothing holds it own.

Bierlink attends the Magic Apparel Show twice a year, as well as a home décor show in Atlanta. She’s excited to see hip hugger pants disappear and cozy sweaters, leggings and boots on the horizon. She’s also looking forward to expanding Sister to Sister’s baby line in the fall.

“We’ve had more items in the past, but I miss it. I just picked up two clothing lines for babies and gifty things, and they’ll be here at the end of September,” she said, adding that customers are excited about the addition. “We change it up for our customers all the time, and we love hearing, ‘You never know what you’re going to find here.’”

For more information, call 509-786-7467, visit shopthesister.com or find the store on Facebook. Store hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.