Mellow Mushroom Charlotte - Ballantyne — Restaurant in Charlotte

We went out Friday night for a family dinner (2 adults, 2 teens). That morning I had just finished working on an 8th grade tunnel book project with one of the kids. The theme was the forest ecosystem and I focused alot on fungi and their role. Let me say this, if you are doing any type of creative project like that, this is awesome inspiration. The decor blows me away at Mellow Mushroom. And it was just so apropos after just spending days on end drawing mushrooms and forests. And the menu art is 🤯. I commented on it to the waitress and she said that they had had a competition for people to submit art for it. It is a work of art. I want one to frame! But, let's get to the food. We know we love MM's pizza. But, our main objective that evening was to try the vegan Veg Out pizza with Follow Your Heart Mozzarella. I use FYH mozz at home and it is hands down the best melting vegan cheese I have found and works great on pizza. And MM's was delicious! I do t feel like I am compromising on taste at all, I don't even think kids would notice the difference in the vegan cheese. I highly recommend their vegan pizzas. And many can be made vegan. I also found out that they just acquired Follow Your Heart feta. Which will really up what they can offer for vegan options. I quickly glanced at the menu and there are at least 2 appetizers, salads, and multiple pizzas that with these 2 vegan cheese options can now become fully vegan I believe. So I'm excited to go back...

Pros: Fun interior decor - usual mellow mushroom theme. Employees appeared to enjoy working there. The food is edible.

Cons: Bad pizza, overpriced, excruciatingly slow service, obvious undertrained employees, poorly managed, not enough parking. Not to be taken seriously as a restuarant.

Went for late lunch. Was not busy (think I know why now). Had to park further than would be typical. Plenty of available tables and servers. Took them 45 mins to make a 14" ham and pineapple pizza which arrived with 9 small pieces of ham and 12 chunks of pineapple. Some slices had no topping at all and a nice 1"- 2" band of dry crust around the circumference.

During the 1 hour + we were forced to spend there, our server passed our table numerous times but maybe made eye contact or interacted with us a total of 4. Beer would sit at the bar for a long time before being run to customers.

The interior design is fun to look at - esp for kids. Was clean. The hostesses were prompt and welcoming upon arrival. The service was poor. The kitchen staff appeared to have little training. The management was courteous enough to discount the cost of an uninspiring ham and pineapple to a cheese pizza 🤣.

Very doubtful I will go back. Honestly had better home cooked oven pizza. Far, far below the caliber of what Ballantyne restaurants typically are....

My issue is with the prices $24 for a pizza is a bit high, but $2.25 for spinach, $3.25 for Kalamata Olives (maybe 6) and $5.95 for diced chicken, that's about $36.00 for a pizza. Two days before in DC we had an excellent pizza with the same toppings for $12.95. The size of the large is about the same as a medium at home. The taste from the corn meal was still on the bottom of the pizza, that is an amateur way to make the pizza easier to move on and off of the peel. The Manager, well she obviously hasn't much decision making abilities because she let us walk out unhappy. The day before we were at Ted's of Montana and the prime rib was hard, the manager came right to the table and made sure we were happy, that is what a manager is supposed to do. He could have just given us excuses like the manager at Mellow Mushroom. I am not going back, there are plenty of other restaurants that I can walk out of happy. And, And if there is a disagreement the manager will work with us to be sure we are not at least totally unhappy! I am certainly a reasonable person, and I feel bad that the manager had her feelings hurt, but I am the customer and customers...