Since October 2023, a bright pink trailer has been spotted around town in Clarksville. Ashley Willis and her mother have been operating their mobile coffee business Blondie and Brownie Coffee from the trailer for the past couple years. However, the duo is now ready to leap into a brick-and-mortar space, with construction ongoing in a 1,600-square-foot space at 1549 Ashland City Rd.
Willis and her mother were inspired to launch Blondie and Brownie Coffee as a testament to their friendship and shared love of coffee. The name is a nod to their own nicknames for each other based on their hair colors — Willis is a brunette and her mother is a blonde.
“She’s in my phone contact as Blondie and I’m in her phone contact as Brownie,” Willis told What Now Nashville.
Over the years, Willis and her mom became best friends and would often bond over a cup of coffee. The brand is built on the cornerstone of their mother-daughter relationship, an element that is a dominant aspect in their branding and approach to business.
“Our tagline is ‘Every blondie needs a brownie,’” Willis said. “It’s not saying that every person needs a blond best friend or a brunette — obviously hair color doesn’t matter. But you do need somebody in life that you can lean on, and my biggest aspect for the business is mother-daughter relationships and how crucial they are.”
They initially launched as a mobile trailer to prove the concept prior to putting down roots in a permanent location. However, Willis’s mother always saw the brand as becoming a brick-and-mortar.
“The brick-and-mortar is her dream, and that’s what she wanted to do in the beginning,” Willis said. “But we wanted to start with the trailer to see if it would pop, and it did. People love us. Our trailer is bright pink, and people love to see it coming down the road.”
While Willis has enjoyed operating out of the trailer, it comes with plenty of challenges, ranging from problems that arise with the vehicle to being unable to offer a consistent schedule for their customers.
“With food truck life, we can’t stay consistent with our customers and we’ve noticed they’re begging for consistency,” Willis said. “During the week especially, we have school, work and places to be at a certain time. They don’t want to come find us at a random location. So we’re looking forward to deepening the relationships we’ve already built with the trailer [at the coffee shop].”
When Blondie and Brownie Coffee opens in August, customers can expect an eclectic, vintage design that will aim to foster community and camaraderie. Those familiar with their current core menu can expect to see plenty of familiar drinks on the menu, including their specialty lattes. Willis and her mother aim to design fun drinks around their own lives. For example, they have a salted caramel latte with vanilla and strawberry cold foam named after and inspired by Willis’s horse, Burnsey. Other specialty lattes include the Blondie Latte with whipped honey and vanilla and the Brownie Latte with almond, coconut and chocolate.
Willis said they expect to add a few more drinks to the menu, and they hope to eventually roll out a food menu featuring items like paninis in the fall.
The mother-daughter duo is looking forward to the flexibility the brick-and-mortar will bring in expanding the brand. They already have ideas for events in the works, such as mother-daughter tea parties.
“We’re going to have a lot of couches and a lot of places for people to hang out and relax. It’s not your typical Starbucks or coffee shop with a lot of chairs and tables — it’s more that atmosphere where we can build community, grow those conversations and prosper friendships, mother-daughter relationships, any kind of relationship that you have,” Willis said.
Until the brick-and-mortar opens, Clarksville can expect to continue to see the bright pink trailer around town. They also plan to continue to operate the trailer for events after opening the brick-and-mortar location in August.
