Baked on 8th Eyes Mid-Spring for Opening

A Nashville couple is targeting a mid-spring opening for a bakery to be located on Eighth Avenue South less then one mile south of SoBro.

Wife-and-husband team Leah and Adam Carmean will own and operate the business, to be called Baked on 8th and located at 1512 Eighth Ave. S. The building (see here courtesy of Google Maps) was last home to Cardiobarre, which closed in late 2017. 

Baked on 8th will be the Carmeans' first business and is expected to have at least 10 employees.

“We both lost our jobs in September, and owning a bakery is something we had both always wanted to do,” says Adam.

The Carmeans are anticipating offering a classic Southern bakery focused on cakes, pies and other single-serving desserts. Coffee will be either a local brand or sourced from one or both of the Carmeans’ hometowns. Leah is from Memphis and attended Belmont University as an entrepreneurship major, while Adam arrived in Nashville from Delaware in 2008.

The couple has enlisted Nashville-based Ireland Architectural Services to handle the interior design. Contractors will be announced later. The Carmeans have worked in the bakery industry for a combined 20 years, and they tell our sister publication, the Nashville Post, that they're not ready to disclose a roughly estimated cost to get the business operational.

Adam tells the Post the location lends itself to a successful business. He says he and Leah wanted on-site parking, the chance to have walk-up business and a noteworthy traffic count. He also cites various businesses located on Eighth between the inner-interstate loop on the north and Wedgewood Avenue on the south — Grimey’s and Flip, for example — as being helpful regarding visibility and popularity. Edgehill is located to the east, with Wedgewood-Houston to the west.

“We’re pleased about the location,” he says. “It offers a strong traffic count, 20 parking spots and is on the going-to-work side of Eighth, so it will be easy for our customers to grab a baked good and a coffee on their way into the city to work.”