For MerryAshley, the story of Controlled Chaos Coffee began long before there was a beverage cart, a menu filled with creative drinks or customers willing to stand in the rain for their morning coffee.
Born in Georgia and raised mostly in St. Augustine, Florida, MerryAshley always knew she wanted to leave her hometown. She started working at 15, and throughout the years, her dad would joke that if she worked as hard for herself as she did for other people, she would be unstoppable.
At 19, she took a leap and moved to North Carolina with no furniture, way too many clothes, an air mattress, a retail job and an empty apartment, hoping for the best. Today, she shares the life she dreamed about with her fiancé, their 9-year-old daughter and their dog. After almost 13 years together, she and her fiancé will be married in November.
Before Controlled Chaos Coffee, MerryAshley was a stay-at-home homeschool mom. The idea of starting a business was something she talked about often enough that eventually her fiancé challenged her to either do it or stop talking about it.
Two months later, Controlled Chaos Coffee opened.
Surprisingly, one of the things that helped set the whole idea in motion was banana syrup. MerryAshley kept seeing banana-flavored drinks on TikTok and trying them locally, only to wonder each time why she didn’t like them. She began experimenting at home and discovered that making her own syrup was more cost effective, tasted better and worked better for the medical issues she was having.
That experimentation became an important part of Controlled Chaos. MerryAshley now tries to feature as many fresh-made syrups as possible in the cart’s signature lattes while still offering the familiar classics customers know and love.
The business name itself came naturally. MerryAshley says it has always been a joke that she functions on some level of controlled chaos, even when she was a kid and especially as an adult. When it came time to name the business, she wanted something that represented the reality of being a homeschool mom opening a business without making the concept something only parents could relate to. Instead, she hopes people hear Controlled Chaos and immediately picture their own version of what those words mean.
While coffee and cold brew were the original focus and remain at the forefront of the business, Controlled Chaos has grown into what MerryAshley considers more of a beverage cart. She didn’t like having to tell customers that there wasn’t anything available for their particular tastes, needs or restrictions, so the menu expanded.
Today, customers can find coffee and cold brew alongside energy drinks, including Lotus natural energy and Red Bull. In the summer, the menu includes lemonades and Liquid I.V. and coconut water hydration options. When cooler weather arrives, milk steamers, ciders and fun hot chocolates make their appearance. Whether someone is sugar-free, dairy-free or gluten-free, MerryAshley’s goal is to be able to make them something that genuinely makes their day a little better. Controlled Chaos will also soon be locally sourcing its milks.
Coming up with the more unusual drinks involves plenty of trial and error. MerryAshley’s morning coffee often becomes her testing ground, partly because she gets bored drinking the same thing. She usually experiments with menu drinks for so long before they’re released that by the time they officially make their debut, she’s already looking for something new to create. That’s where her Drink of the Week comes in.
One of her craziest successes was a coconut water Americano, something she still occasionally makes for herself. Coconut, in fact, is MerryAshley’s personal favorite. If she isn’t ordering a special drink somewhere, she’ll typically choose coconut and caramel with some form of cold foam or raspberry coconut with cold foam.
Her customers have been surprisingly willing to follow her on these flavor adventures. The raspberry and coconut water Americano, finished with a coconut soft top for creaminess, became a favorite. Another standout was the Mangrove Sunrise from the spring menu, a fresh white chocolate and orange blossom latte with white chocolate cold foam.
What customers don’t see is just how much work happens before and after that drink lands in their hands. Setup and breakdown are two of the most time-consuming parts of running Controlled Chaos. A typical day begins about two hours before the cart is scheduled to open, sometimes even earlier depending on travel time. Once they arrive, it takes another 30 to 45 minutes to completely open without rushing. At the end of the day, there can be another couple of hours of cleaning and restocking to make sure everything is ready for the next morning.
Running a mobile business has also taught MerryAshley that things don’t always go according to plan. She learned that lesson on her very first day in business when she arrived at the wrong beauty bar and began setting up. In the middle of preparing for Controlled Chaos Coffee’s first-ever day, the correct location called to ask where she was.
Luckily, she was only about five minutes away, but MerryAshley was mortified. She also learned an immediate lesson about confirming bookings and now isn’t afraid to ask what she jokingly describes as an almost obnoxious number of questions.
Those chaotic moments, however, are only a small part of what the business has brought into her life. Some of the experiences that have stayed with MerryAshley the longest have had very little to do with coffee itself.
One in particular still makes her emotional.
A woman once walked up to the trailer and ordered coffee. She and MerryAshley made small talk, and after paying, the woman started to walk away. Then she turned around and explained that she hadn’t visited in a couple of months, but the last time she had gotten coffee from Controlled Chaos, she and her family received the call that they were going to be able to adopt their daughter. She had specifically come back because she wanted MerryAshley to know.
MerryAshley was speechless.
For her, that moment represented what she had hoped the business would become from the beginning: coffee and community. Being associated with such a momentous event in someone’s life was an honor she never expected when Controlled Chaos opened.
The business has also changed MerryAshley’s relationship with the community around her. Although she had lived here for more than a decade before opening Controlled Chaos, she says she never truly felt like she knew the town until she started the business.
She has since watched people support donation drives, stand outside in the rain and willingly try whatever crazy flavor she puts in front of them. She knows getting coffee from a mobile trailer isn’t necessarily easier, which makes every line of customers that much more meaningful.
Her regulars mean the world to her, and she notices when she hasn’t seen someone in a while. Local teachers stop by and share stories she looks forward to hearing. At events, she still finds herself looking around in awe at the community that has formed around the business.
Entrepreneurship has changed MerryAshley, too. Patience and learning to go with the flow have become two of her biggest lessons. She describes herself as having once been extremely Type A. That part of her personality is still there, but now she says it comes with more grace.
A mobile business quickly taught her that not everything can or will go according to plan. There is plenty of rolling with the punches and solving little problems on the fly. Taking some of the pressure off herself has helped her find solutions faster and prevented her own anxieties from unintentionally reaching the customer.
She’s also learned that there is room for everyone. The way women throughout the community have consistently supported Controlled Chaos has been especially meaningful to her. In her experience, supporting other people in your space in a constructive way doesn’t make you less successful. It can make the entire experience better.
Of all the milestones Controlled Chaos has reached, one stands out immediately when MerryAshley is asked what makes her proudest.
It was the day she opened at Josh’s Farmers Market before the market moved.
Long before she had her own coffee business, Josh’s was a weekly stop for MerryAshley and her daughter. Coffee and a Granny’s Donut with her “little munchkin” had been part of their routine for as long as she could remember. Then came the day when she arrived not simply as a customer, but as a business owner.
Controlled Chaos opened there to a full, seemingly never-ending line of customers, in the rain.
For MerryAshley, it was difficult to put into words what that moment meant.
Behind all of those accomplishments is the family she credits with helping make them possible. MerryAshley says she couldn’t do it without her fiancé. In many ways, Controlled Chaos exists because he kept telling her she was capable of doing it until she finally decided to believe him.
Once she did, he helped her build it every step of the way. He listened, “patiently(ish),” through the questions and worries that came with starting a business, including fears that people might not like her, that she might wreck the trailer or that the whole thing might fail. He helped her work through the problems that may have been small in reality but felt enormous at the time.
Her daughter has been her cheerleader, little trooper and protégé.
Because MerryAshley had been a stay-at-home mom before starting the business, one of her greatest reservations was how the change would affect her daughter. Instead, she has watched her learn what it takes to run a business, show up for yourself when things are difficult and bounce back from adversity.
There’s also a bigger picture. MerryAshley thinks about the possibility of building something that could benefit her daughter’s future. The idea of creating that kind of generational opportunity is an enormous source of motivation.
When the cart finally closes and MerryAshley gets a day away from the business, her family gets her time. She’s grateful for friends who understand the demands of running Controlled Chaos, but if she has 24 hours off, chances are she’s been planning all week to spend them with her fiancé and daughter.
Her perfect day is simply one spent with them, although it will obviously begin with coffee, preferably one she doesn’t have to make so they can support another local business. Sometimes the day is productive and sometimes it’s ridiculously unproductive. Either way, she tries to disconnect and focus on her family.
There is also one thing her regular customers might never guess about the woman behind their morning caffeine.
MerryAshley is not a morning person.
Once the caffeine kicks in, she’s ready to talk. Before that, she says her expression could be compared to a raccoon that’s just been caught digging through the trash.
As Controlled Chaos has grown, MerryAshley has remained conscious of the community that helped make that growth possible. She says opportunities to partner with local schools and organizations are something the business is incredibly grateful for because, without the people of Mooresville and the Lake Norman area, Controlled Chaos wouldn’t have a business.
She describes the business as the greatest blessing she never expected to work and believes going into a new venture expecting to be ridiculously successful immediately would be naïve. Because of that, she doesn’t lose sight of the way the community has shown up for Controlled Chaos.
The business has been able to build relationships and partner with organizations including The Hope House, LKN Humane, Crazy Ladies to the Rescue, Girls on the Run of Greater Piedmont and many local schools.
And if there were no budgets, no logistical obstacles and nobody saying something couldn’t be done, MerryAshley already knows where she’d like to take Controlled Chaos over the next five years.
A drive-through.
She sees plenty of pull-up-and-go options at coffee shops and would love to create another easy, quick choice for people who are short on time.
Whatever Controlled Chaos looks like in the future, however, the reason behind it remains remarkably simple.
For MerryAshley, coffee has always been about community. It’s the act of slowing down for a moment and starting the day on the right foot. It’s standing in line and striking up a conversation with a stranger. It’s remembering that someone had a doctor’s appointment last week and asking how it went, or knowing how many days are left until their mother-in-law comes to town.
Controlled Chaos wants to know how your day is going. They want to become part of people’s lives and routines.
Because in the end, Controlled Chaos Coffee is about much more than what’s in the cup. It’s about the people standing around it.
