Chef helps launch 300+ food businesses in 6 years
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WSMV) When you want to turn your food hobby into a food business, hundreds of entrepreneurs have sought the help of seasoned chef Laura Wilson.
The 8-time Executive Chef has helped launch more than 300 food businesses in Nashville since starting Citizen Kitchens in 2015.
“So many of these are just crazy ideas that someone just took a leap to do,” Wilson said. “And I really respect that gumption.”
Wilson is the managing partner for Citizen Kitchens, which has locations in West Nashville on Charlotte Pike and East Nashville in the basement of Hunter’s Station in Five Points. It’s a commissary kitchen with rentable commercial kitchen space offering an affordable way for people to start their food venture without taking the risk of securing their own kitchen space.
First Bite: Succulent Vegan Tacos
A new Nashville taqueria is serving up a plant-based take on traditional Mexican fare.
Karla Derry
Unlike any taqueria in Nashville, Succulent Vegan Tacos serves 100 percent plant-based fare rooted in the authentic flavors of Mexico.
Co-founder and chef
Adriana Ortega grew up in Mexico City immersed in its vibrant tastes and culinary traditions. When she and her husband
Ronald Cerdas moved to Nashville 20 years ago, she could not find any foods that resembled what she knew and loved. It set her on a quest to replicate those recipes, with a particular focus on diet and lifestyle: She and Cerdas are longtime vegetarians who have become vegan.
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The Be-Hive Deli & Market italian sandwichPhoto: Daniel Meigs
Sorry, good ol’ boys, but it’s time to stop laughing at vegans. A plant-based diet is no longer the tree-hugging, granola-crunching butt of the joke. Veganism is a lifestyle embraced by millions lifestyle website WTVOX estimates that there are roughly 78 million vegans worldwide and numbers are on the rise. According to The Vegan Society, “retail sales of plant-based meat grew 31 percent, while total U.S. retail meat sales grew just 5 percent” between 2017 and 2019, and in recent years the “consumption of plant milk increased by 61 percent while consumption of cow’s milk decreased by 22 percent.”