Jennifer Latham worked for nearly three decades in restaurants, including at Tartine Bakery as its director of bread for San Francisco and Los Angeles. She’s written multiple books about bread and grains. All of that expertise was in her head as she was thinking about her next professional step.
“My first love is sourdough bread, and I also really love making croissants," Latham says. "I wanted to make a space where I could just make bread. It sort of sounds like a simple desire, but a lot of bakeries are really big and doing wholesale and baking through the night. As a business owner, you end up running operations and not getting to bake much. I wanted to build a little corner bakery where I could just make as much bread as I can make and make some croissants and do some coffee.”
Mama Bread
Luckily for Nashville, Latham decided to put down roots in Inglewood. She opened her dream bakery in East Nashville, and since Mama Bread started baking last month, it has been the topic of many foodie conversations. Butter, chocolate and ham-and-cheese croissants are available at 8 a.m. Bread is available at 10 a.m. There’s a small market with produce from Bloomsbury Farm, plus oil, honey, rice and other pantry staples. Latham plans to add salads and sandwiches in the near future, but she’s not quite ready.
“We got sort of slammed off the bat with bread and pastries,” she says. “We’re just trying to do a few simple things really well and really dial those things in before we add more.”
Mama Bread is located at 1600 Woodland St., in the former Italia building. Groceries, Etc., a new vinyl bar, is coming to the same address, which is also the relocated home of Lemon Laine beauty shop. When Latham first came to look at the property, she remembers, she parked out front, and “just sat there for half an hour and watched people move around the neighborhood, people walking around with strollers and running into each other and walking and talking. The pace of the neighborhood is just lovely, and the community on this corner that existed before I even did this was already strong. I knew I’d never find a better spot for my little corner bakery.”
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Latham is interested in food systems and regenerative agriculture and is often in conversations with others about local grain systems.
“One thing that kind of comes up sometimes when I’m talking with folks is how to scale up regenerative agriculture," she says. "How do we get more good food to more people? I really feel that is the wrong question. I feel like scaling down and doing more of it is kind of the best way to get the best, freshest ingredients to more people.
"We have so many great bakeries in Nashville and in East Nashville," Latham continues. "Dozen does beautiful bread. Butterlamp is making gorgeous bread. Lillian St. is making beautiful bread. The folks at Folk and Rolf [& Daughters] are making gorgeous bread. I think, rather than me trying to make 2,000 loaves of bread a day, I think if there are more of us just baking 200 really good loaves of bread a day. That’s the best way to kind of get good food in the community. Because if I’m trying to make 2,000 loaves a day, then I’m not making it right anymore.”
Current hours at Mama Bread are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, with plans to expand to seven days a week down the road.
