Nashville taco restaurant to open 2nd location in Lane Parke

The owners of a fast-casual breakfast and lunch taco restaurant in Nashville plan to open a second location in Mountain Brook later this year.

The restaurant is called Ladybird Taco and is inspired by the taco scene in Texas, where two of the four owners currently live and another previously lived.

They plan to put Ladybird Taco in a 3,000-square-foot space in the second phase of Lane Parke, next to Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, said Brooks Veazey, one of the owners and a resident of Hoover’s Bluff Park community. The goal is to have it open by November or December, he said.

The idea for Ladybird Taco started with Gabe Scott, an owner who lives in Nashville. He was a musician who spent a lot of time on the road and was looking for a job where he didn’t have to travel as much and could spend more time with his family, Veazey said.

His wife is from Texas, and he loved the breakfast tacos he had in Texas and wanted to bring that experience to Nashville.

He partnered with Ben Edgerton and Andrew Wiseheart, who owned a restaurant called Contigo in Austin, to develop a menu for Ladybird Taco, Veazey said. Veazey also had a hand in development, but Wiseheart, a master chef, was the lead taster, Veazey said.

They spent three years developing the menu and opened Ladybird Taco in 2020 in the 12 South neighborhood in Nashville, he said. Now that the restaurant has proven successful, they’re ready to expand.

Veazey, who graduated from Oak Mountain High School in 2010 and the University of Alabama in 2014, wanted to bring the concept to the Birmingham area. The four partners chose Lane Parke in Mountain Brook because they like the feeling of community connectedness there, Veazey said.

It matches the vibe in 12 South of a place where people can hang out near where they live, he said.

Ladybird Taco offers breakfast and lunch tacos, queso, salsa and salads from fresh and local ingredients. One of the things that makes the restaurant stand out is that all the corn and flour tortillas are made in house, Veazey said. “They’re incredibly fresh.”

The restaurant also smokes its own brisket in house as well. One of the favorite lunch tacos is the brisket queso rajas, which includes brisket, cheese, pepper, onions and potatoes, and the No. 1 seller on the breakfast menu is the bacon, egg and cheese taco, Veazey said.

The restaurant also plans to offer the June Coffee brand of coffee and a variety of alcoholic drinks, including mimosas, margaritas, beer and wine. The expected operating hours will be 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Veazey said.

The partners plan to hire a general manager for the Mountain Brook location, but Veazey plans to be present there frequently as well.

He got his first taste of the food service business at age 16, running a Dippin’ Dots stand at Birmingham Barons games, he said. He worked at Taziki’s Mediterranean Café while in college and also helped run Alabama football concessions while in Tuscaloosa, he said. He also helped expand Steel City Pops into Texas for a while and formerly was part-owner of Honest Mary’s, a healthy grain bowl restaurant in Austin, but Wiseheart took his ownership interest in Honest Mary’s, he said.

Once the Mountain Brook location of Ladybird Taco gets up and running well, the plan is to open other locations in both the Nashville and Birmingham metro markets, Veazey said. Potential locations in the Birmingham metro area include Cahaba Heights, downtown Birmingham, Hoover and Trussville, he said.

Other new tenants coming to the second phase of Lane Parke include a MELT grill cheese restaurant, a new concept restaurant called MARO by Nepalese chef Abhi Sainju and Little Buckhead Blue, a children’s clothing store based in Atlanta.