South Side construction firm owner Nosa Ehimwenman was having a good day on Wednesday.

It was the ribbon-cutting for what’s believed to be the largest airport Starbucks in the country, built by Ehimwenman’s Bowa Construction Inc. at O’Hare Airport.

The coffee shop’s size is a novelty — it abuts his newly built Wicker Park Sushi restaurant — but the project is also Chicago’s first airport concessions construction project awarded to an African-American prime contractor.

Ehimwenman was thrilled enough, before Inc. Magazine on Wednesday released its Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America — placing Bowa at #1248.

“My last name means ‘you have a good spirit,’” said Ehimwenman, whose family emigrated here from Nigeria when he was 6, settling in Rogers Park, where his father drove a cab for 15 years to provide for his family.

“Sorry, I get a little emotional,” said the 37-year-old Hyde Park resident, when mentioning his immigrant parents.

“I just remember watching my dad come home late and leave early, driving for Yellow Taxi, then Checker Cab, and hardly seeing him because he was always working,” he said. “I look back at my parents’ sacrifices, at where we’ve come from. To be standing at O’Hare doing a ribbon-cutting for possibly the largest airport Starbucks in the country, it’s kind of mind-blowing.”

Read full article on the Chicago Sun Times website.