Asheville Group Launches Downtown Podcast Studio to Support Aspiring Creators

Eagle Market Streets Development Corporation brought a new kind of creative infrastructure to one of Asheville's most historically significant corridors when it launched Table & Mic, a professional podcast studio and talent incubator, on Eagle Market Street in downtown Asheville.

"This incubator allows people who may not have started a podcast before, but always wanted to, to come in and try it out," said Caleb Owolabi of Table and Mic on Eagle Market Street. "That incubator is launching today."

The studio sits within the Eagle-Market Street business district, known locally as The Block, a stretch bordered by the city's police and fire departments and Biltmore Avenue. The district's roots go back to the late 1800s, when it emerged in the years following the Civil War and Reconstruction to become a center of African American commerce and culture during the era of segregation.

That history carries weight in the numbers. As businesses shuttered and residents relocated over subsequent decades, Asheville's Black population fell sharply, from roughly 33 percent of the city's residents to between 6 and 7 percent. The community did not disappear, however. Years later, residents gathered around a kitchen table and committed to restoring the district's economic and cultural vitality.

Table & Mic represents one of the tangible results of that effort. Eagle Market Streets Development Corporation, which describes its mission as supporting businesses and entrepreneurship in the historic district, framed the project as part of a broader wave of new Black-owned businesses reopening along The Block, many oriented toward both the neighborhood's past and its future. The podcast studio fits into a growing cluster of creative ventures designed to support entrepreneurship, offering media and podcasting spaces where aspiring creators can experiment with new ideas.

The launch added a media production dimension to a revitalization story that has been building for years along Eagle and Market streets, giving first-time podcasters a professional space to turn long-held ambitions into something audible.