After two years slinging gourmet dirty sodas and scratch-made desserts out of a food truck parked at the Lowe's on Tom Austin Highway, Kodie Cash is opening a permanent storefront for Bake n' Soda in downtown Springfield. The new restaurant, Bake n' Soda Kitchen, will take over a 1,144-square-foot building at 901 S. Main St. and is targeting an October opening, with an expanded menu of sandwiches, salads, breakfast items and smoothies joining the drinks and treats that built its following.
Cash launched the mobile version of Bake n' Soda in 2024, running it seven days a week to figure out which products and locations actually worked, according to WhatNow. She has described the truck as the first step toward something permanent, telling the outlet that it helped her learn whether there was an audience for what she was selling before she committed to a physical building. Now, after two years serving Middle Tennessee from that parking lot, she's overseeing the build-out of the brick-and-mortar space herself.
The construction work is being handled by G.S. Moore & Son Real Estate, a five-generation Robertson County firm that traces back to 1904, when it was founded by Guilford S. Moore. The company, now run by his great-great-grandchildren Jim Moore and Aubrey Moore, has become a familiar name in the county's commercial real estate, according to information listed on LoopNet. The storefront itself is a 1937 commercial building that last changed hands in May 2021 before this latest adaptive reuse, per Zillow property records.
A Menu That Grows With the Space
Bake n' Soda Kitchen will keep its core lineup of gourmet dirty sodas, floats and scratch-made desserts intact while adding a proper food menu for the first time. The restaurant will operate as a quick-service spot with counter ordering and table delivery for dine-in guests, and the building will include indoor seating along with a back patio and a smaller patio out front. Bread and bagels for the new food offerings will come from Lavender Moon Bakery, a Springfield-based sourdough bakery owned by local resident Stephanie Czibrik that already supplies cafes and farmers' markets around Robertson County, according to Experience Robertson County.
Cash also plans to source ingredients from area farms, including Head's Farm in nearby Cedar Hill. Founded in 2010 by Miranda Head and her family, Head's Farm is known locally for u-pick strawberries and seasonal produce and runs a farm store on Kinneys Road; the two businesses already partnered in July on a community Corn Fest, per Head's Farm. Cash has also hired artist Carly Keith Rager to paint murals on the property, adding another local touch to the build-out.
When it opens, Bake n' Soda Kitchen will initially run Thursday through Monday, roughly 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with Cash saying she hopes to expand the schedule once the restaurant is fully up and running. The business is also hiring staff ahead of the opening. Cash has said she's grateful for the community's support that carried the truck through its first two years, and the storefront expansion was announced on social media.
Part of a Bigger Push on South Main Street
Bake n' Soda's move lands squarely inside Springfield's own development plans for the corridor. The city's Comprehensive Plan identifies South Main Street as a primary commercial gateway and calls for mixed-use revitalization and streetscape investment to better connect it to the city core, according to City of Springfield planning documents. That strategy got a boost in May, when the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development designated Springfield an official Tennessee Main Street Community, a status that opens up state funding, technical resources and grants for downtown historic preservation, per the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. Springfield joined 49 other Tennessee municipalities receiving that support for adaptive reuse of historic commercial buildings.
Cash built much of her early customer base by showing up at Springfield's monthly 1st Fridays market on the Historic Square, an outdoor event running May through October that draws live music, food trucks and more than 80 local vendors, according to the City of Springfield's official website. That kind of grassroots following is common among the small operators riding the national dirty soda wave, a trend that started in Utah and has grown into a quick-service category with chains like Swig now running more than 150 drive-thru locations across 16 states, as Hoodline has reported. Independent dirty soda concepts elsewhere in Tennessee are following a similar path from mobile units to permanent storefronts, including Sips Dirty Soda's move into a former coffee roastery on Covington's North Main Street this past March.
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