Laura Wilson, Jenny Vaughn, & Brent Ling are the team behind Citizen Kitchens.

We opened Citizen Kitchens for local food producers in Nashville. With a first class production space and business support, our doors are open and we have a wait list of members. Our ownership team has a combined 25+ years of experience in the food & beverage industry, including specifically operating shared commercial kitchen space. We launched the business because the three of us combine to produce an outstanding product for our members, helping their businesses grow and building a local, thriving food economy.

Citizen Kitchens is the best place to grow a food-based business in Nashville. For a single monthly membership fee, each business has access to licensed kitchen space, commercial equipment, storage, and other business support. The icing on the cake is the robust network of food entrepreneurs whose collaboration opens the most difficult of doors for a small business.

Why deal with the hassle of sharing space? The shared absorption of high expenses – equipment purchasing, licensing, health and agriculture requirements, plumbing and electric – reduces one of the largest obstacles to running a food based business. Collaboration means a predictable and affordable monthly fee, freeing businesses to focus on internal improvements.

We seek the generous financial support of our family, friends, colleagues, and the Kiva community to make kitchen upgrades, which will allow our food producers to sell higher quality and higher volume products to their customers.

We will spend the Kiva Zip loan on smaller, but still expensive equipment needed for our food producing membership: 2 commercial mixers, rolling racks, sheet pans, shelving, tools, small reach-in refrigerators and freezers, an outdoor shed for storage, and security cameras will all help us be a better home for the membership.