What do you get when you offer a choice of 47 toppings, 4 bases, 35 bottles of beer, 32 draft choices, 11 blended beers, and a full bar? You get a pizza mecca that is sure to satisfy.
Open the door and take a step in. From the first smell of fresh ingredients to the psychedelic paintings on the wall, you'll know this is not your normal canned pizza place. The paintings and mushroom figures seem to take you backstage of a Grateful Dead concert. The Blues Brothers sitting next to the fireplace make you want to raise your hand and order three orange whips. The restaurant is divided into three distinctive rooms: the bar room, the family room, and the echoing red plastic chair room.
The bar room actually reminds me of an upscale eatery in New York. As you enter the restaurant, you immediately notice dark wood chairs and booths, a sophisticated bar, and an open kitchen. If you have children with you, you will most likely be shuttled past this area to one of the two other sections.
The "echo room" is what I call the area in which we were seated. In this room, you will find two flat screen TVs, bright red plastic chairs, white plastic tables, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi. The sound in the room echos heavily and, depending on the number of children, can be quite loud. The room has large glass garage-type doors that open to an outside patio with weather permitting. The summer will surely make this room a popular choice for diners.
The section to the left of the entrance demonstrates more traditional restaurant setting. It includes booths and tables with the signature "Mushroom Man" standing in the corners. The restrooms are also located on this side of the building. With people walking to and from the restrooms, some of the tables in the center of the room witness a bit more traffic than the other two areas.
APPETIZER
After you are seated, we recommend you order the pretzels. You can choose from three varieties of the pretzels - salt with a side of mustard, cinnamon and honey, and Parmesan with marinara sauce. While they seem to be made of a mixture of pizza dough, they are quite good. They take about 20 minutes to make so order them with your drinks. If you can't decide which ones you want, just ask them to give you a sampling of each. While all of the pretzels are tasty, we would have to give them each a different rating.
Cinnamon and Honey: Eric - B
Kelly - C (too sweet for me)
Salt with side of Mustard: Eric - B (can be heavy on salt)
Kelly - B+ (yes, they are salty,
but I scraped most of
the salt off)
but I scraped most of
the salt off)
Parmesan topped with marinara sauce:
Eric - C- (just too much like
pizza dough)
pizza dough)
Kelly - A (LOVE them)
(Poor lighting made the bottom pretzel look green. Though it may look gross, we can assure you NONE of the pretzels were green)
PIZZA
The menu can be a little overwhelming with 4 bases (sauces) and 47 toppings. The great thing about Mellow Mushroom is that you can artfully design a pizza highlighting all your favorite tastes. If your eyes start to cross after reading all these choices, there is also a page in the back of the menu that offers pre-designed selections.
Eric ordered the Buffalo Chicken Pizza.
This little diddy is the best I have ever eaten! Beautifully topped with sauteed onions, real chunks of chicken breast, the perfect buffalo sauce, bacon (fried by the hand of God) and a striping of ranch. Every bite is the perfect mix of flavor. The onion is cut paper thin and cooked to perfection. The bacon is as thick as a stack of credit cards and the perfect touch to this decadent pizza. The buffalo sauce is just a little spicy, a 3 on a scale of 1-10. I would order this pizza again and again. I'm sure you will too. If this is your first visit to Mellow Mushroom and you can't decide which toppings you want, fall back on this favorite.
Buffalo Chicken Pizza: Eric - A
Kelly ordered a pizza with a barbecue sauce base and grilled chicken.
The barbecue sauce is delicious. It exudes the perfect sweet barbecue flavor so prevalent in this region. I actually wish I had just ordered a plain cheese pizza with this barbecue sauce. But I didn't. There was a generous amount of sliced grilled chicken adorning the pizza. The fairly large slices of chicken were adequately cooked. But, for me, it was actually too much. Of course, this is coming from someone who orders all her deli meat thinly sliced. And then only puts two slices on the bread! There was nothing wrong with the chicken, and most people would have probably enjoyed the hearty portions of chicken. Nonetheless, I ended up taking most of it off and eating it plain.
Barbecue Sauce and Grilled Chicken Pizza: Kelly - B+
ERIC'S OVERALL RATING: A
Pros: Great choices from beers to toppings, clean, very friendly, the honey pretzels
Cons: Price (look over the menu before you order, things can add up quickly), the echo room (unless your with kids and feel like letting them unwind a little, try to get a seat inside)
KELLY'S OVERALL RATING: B
Pros: Clean, family friendly, unique selections, a little something for everyone
Cons: Price
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