Mellow Mushroom

Sorry for the delayed post this week everybody, we're in the process of becoming first-time homeowners (could not be more excited), and we had some tasks to accomplish that got in the way a little this time.

Aaaaaaanywho, let's get right down to it.  This week's review is of Mellow Mushroom.  Firstly, I keep wanting to call it "the Mellow Mushroom," but it seems that my need to use "the" is unnecessary.  I apologize if I use "the" too many times in this post, I can't seem to stop.  "The."  (This is one of those times that if you look at a word long enough or say it too many times, it starts to lose meaning and you begin to question if you've spelled it right.  Go ahead, say "the" about ten times or just stare at it for a few seconds.  Tell me that doesn't happen to you too.  See?  I'm not crazy.)

Back on track again.  More after the jump.  Check out my cool picture.

I'm sure the picture is a little confusing, but I swear I'll explain it all and we'll understand together by the end of this.  Just stick with me.

The more observant readers will notice that the pizza in the picture is only half pepperoni, and half something else.  "WHAT IS GOING ON," you say?  Well first, I ask you to tone it down some, caps lock is not proper for our inside voices.  Then, to answer your question, I will mention that I did this specifically at the request of a friend (Hi Sarah!) that mentioned that the barbeque chicken pizza is just awesome.  Let me tell you something....she wasn't kidding.  I'll come back to this in a bit.

I like to mention what we noticed first, and we can do that about the restaurant itself and the pizza.  For the restaurant, this place was something different for me.  I'd never been here before, and I hadn't heard of it until a couple of months ago when I saw one in Pigeon Forge (that's Tennessee, for the two people that have apparently been reading this blog in Germany.  Yep.  That Germany.  Guten tag!).

At first glance, this particular location had what looked to be a nice painting of a horse race at Churchill Downs on one entire wall.  Upon closer review, the horse race was turned into a video game. There were booster arrows on the track, and characters other than jockeys were riding the horses in some instances.  Neat.

For the rest of the inside of the restaurant, it felt very open and spacious, with at least 4 TVs (probably one or two more at most, I couldn't see everything) showing sports.  It wasn't too focused on the TVs in any way, it was more like they were just there in case you'd like to enjoy their programming.  It was a tad cold inside, so bring a jacket if you're going and you tend to get cold easily.  Oh, and they had free WiFi!  (IPhone users, jump on that)

On to the food!  The pizza is made in a brick oven, which the waitress told us before we even ordered.  She was also nice enough to let us know how long to expect the pizzas to take in the oven, which I assume takes longer if it's very crowded and there are a lot of pizzas to be made at once.

We ordered the cheese bread as an appetizer (starting to see a consistent theme with our appetizer choices), and we were a little disappointed.  The cheese wasn't very flavorful, but the bread wasn't anything special either (think small baguette cut in halves with cheese on them).  I'd like to try some other appetizers there as well, the soft pretzels looked good and I plan on trying those at some point.

As the pizza picture shows above, we ordered a half and half pizza of pepperoni and their "Funky Q. Chicken" pizza, which is just a BBQ sauce base with cheese, bacon, and onions on it.  We partook in this, minus the onions.  Let me just say it was fantastic.  The pepperoni half was decent by all means, and the pepperoni was a little greasy, but sometimes pizza is just greasy.  I enjoyed it.  The BBQ chicken pizza stole the show, however.

Let me backtrack a minute to explain the other picture shown above, the utensil wrap...thing (is there a name for that?).  They put the straws with the utensils!  The utensils are wrapped in a napkin just like anywhere else, and the straw is wrapped with it in the sticky paper wrap!  It's absolutely genius.  I had to give them credit; I love little things like that.

For the rest of the pizza other than the toppings, I was quite happy.  The inner crust was thin (I'd say between your average thin and hand-tossed), and the outer crust was thick (normal hand-tossed).  The outer crust was a little tough or doughy (inconsistent) in some places, but it tasted like Little Ceasars' crazy bread!  I couldn't get enough of it.  I would have ordered another whole pizza just to get to the crust again.  (I mentioned the pretzels earlier, they're made out of the same crust.  I don't know if they're glazed in the same way, though.)  For those of  you who have never had Little Ceasars' crazy bread, then I suggest you take a moment to seriously consider where your life is heading and decide on where you need to go from here to get back on track.

We took two pieces of each pizza home with us for the leftovers.  We ordered a large pizza this week, so we were full enough to be satisfied with only eating half before we left.  I'll breakdown the leftovers for both pepperoni and BBQ in an easy way.

Funky Q. Chicken (BBQ):
Corey (cold):  I reheated this one.  I've never had cold BBQ pizza before, and I wasn't about to take the risk of ruining the taste of it before I got to the crust.  And I really wanted more of the crust.  Did I mention I liked the crust?  I liked it well enough, but I felt like the oven overdid it some for me.  I would have liked it better in the microwave than in the oven, I think.
Katie (reheated):  Awesome.  Tastes just as good as in the restaurant, just a little crispier.  (I'm paraphrasing, she doesn't give me great description while she's enjoying her pizza.)

Pepperoni:
Corey (cold):  Great cold pizza.  I'd put it on par with just about anywhere else.
Katie (reheated):  Not bad, but BBQ > pepperoni.

For the short and sweet or the TL;DR ("too long; didn't read") version:

Service:  Good service, but the utensil/straw combo was over the top.  Way to prep people.  Lunchtime crowd was small so no issues at all. (Grade:  A+)  Note:  a friend of mine (Hi Kathleen!) mentioned to me that this place gets EXTREMELY busy at dinner time.  We had a pleasant experience for lunch and that is all I can vouch for.  I'd suggest going earlier in the day, if possible.
Atmosphere:  Very different, enjoyable.  Feels like a family place, not really a "go watch the game at the Mellow Mushroom" place, but you definitely could do that.  I still like the video game derby painting.  (Grade:  A)
Taste:  Pepperoni was decent, but nothing outstanding.  The BBQ chicken was awesome, I'll definitely be going back to have that again.  (Grade:  B for pepperoni, A+ for BBQ, A+++++++ for the crust.  This isn't school, you can get more than one "+.")
Accessibility:  A lot of room to move around it seemed, and plenty of choice between booth or table.  Wheelchair friendly, in my opinion.  The location was easy to get to (just off the main road), and very close to a main highway (Blankenbaker location).


Overall, the Mellow Mushroom was great, and I think I'll definitely go back at some point.  I'd rather sooner than later!  Until next week, feel free to leave comments suggesting where we should go for our next review.  If it's a new place, I'll try to give you a shout out in the post as long as I remember (no guarantees!)