Mellow Mushroom Clemson — Restaurant in Clemson

This was hands down the worst dining experience I’ve ever had — not just at a Mellow Mushroom, but anywhere. My father and I came in expecting a relaxed meal, and from the moment we sat down, our server (young woman, pimply, with black hair) made it very clear we were an inconvenience to her. She greeted us with pure attitude, no smile, no greeting — just cold, irritated energy like we had personally ruined her day by sitting at her table. She was visibly annoyed every time we asked a basic question or needed anything — drinks, updates, anything at all. It was like we were bothering her by simply existing. We waited over an hour for just our appetizer — which never came. Meanwhile, tables seated long after us were getting their food and service with no issue. We never got a single refill. We barely even saw her. When we did, she was either blaming someone else or giving us a nasty look with another excuse. It was clear she didn’t care about our experience, our time, or our business. It honestly felt like she was punishing us for something — for what, I have no idea. She was cold, rude, and beyond unprofessional. We ended up walking out hungry and angry. When we finally got a manager involved, he did waive the food (that we never even received), but then had the audacity to only discount our drinks. Drinks that should have clearly been comped completely, considering we were never served our food and had the worst service I’ve ever encountered. That gesture felt like a lazy, half-hearted attempt to save face — not to actually make things right. No one seemed genuinely sorry. No one tried to turn the experience around. It was just excuse after excuse and the bare minimum effort after over an hour of our time was wasted. We were polite. We were patient. And we got treated like trash in return. I won’t be back. And I’ll be telling everyone I know to steer clear of this location too. If this is the kind of service you’re okay letting walk around representing your business, that says all we need to know. Shame on your staff, and shame on your management for...

Pizza came out without the modification, plates were dirty, we weren’t given silverware, and trivia questions were wrong, causing us to lose out on an earned gift card. A manager said they would call me back after I left a message, but they still haven’t. It’s been over 24 hours, so I doubt they will return my call.

Oct 10, 2024 we sat inside for trivia night. The pizza came out with the regular toppings when we asked to change one. It’s not worth the wait to ask them to remake it. We weren’t given plates or forks and had to ask for them. When we got plates, there was green stuff on them and we asked for new clean plates. Still no silverware, whatever.

The trivia theme was Harry Potter. One of the questions was “What house was Fredrick Malfoy in?” Our team wrote “None. Not a HP character.” Thinking it was a trick question because the answers were so easy. At the end of trivia, we found out this was the only question we got wrong. We went to ask the trivia host why we got it wrong. She said “you know, the blond kid who picks on Harry.” I said “Yes, that is Draco Malfoy. There isn’t a Fredrick Malfoy and that’s what we wrote for the answer.” Her response was, “I don’t know, that’s just what it said when I looked it up. We only give the top 3 teams a prize.” So what do they do when more than 3 teams win??? And people around us were just asking Siri for the answers anyways.

On our way out, we asked the front desk hosts about it hoping they would help us, but they just shrugged and said “yeah, I don’t know…”

The issue is that the prize was a gift card. We were the only people who called out a bad question which would have gotten us money taken off our bill, but no one was willing to listen to us. What’s the point of trivia if there’s bad questions and money is on the line? They could have made it right when we brought it up the first time with the trivia host, the second time with the front desk hosts, or the third time...

This is a tough review for me. We are from out of town so this was our first visit. So I will break it into categories.

Food- delicious! Every order at our table was great and hot. Very good quality food.

Service- top notch. Our waitress was very good. Attentive and quick. Very friendly.

Beer list/selection - this is where things start to go wrong. I chose places to eat based upon the beer list. I was looking to enjoy local breweries and selections. Upon being seated I was greatly impressed with the laminated list…. Until ordering and told that many of the selections were unavailable. Apparently it is a “year long” list according to our server so therefore many were not actually on tap to be ordered. What??

If you provide a list to your customers, be able to serve and provide the selections. Sorry folks. This was a big negative. So instead of enjoying many of the selections on your laminated list I had to settle for beers that I’ve had many times back in my hometown.

Music- another tough one. I brought my family to your restaurant at about 5:45.

As of 6:00 I could not hear anything being said by my wife and kids at my table. When I go out to eat with my family I want to be able to talk to them. A family at the table next to us said the exact same thing to us.

And I’m sorry. Without being rude, the musician was not very good. The music was VERY repetitive. Kind of grating and annoying. I respect the guitarist as an artist and what he was doing but it wasn’t very good. FYI this was Saturday July 24, 2021.

So…. In terms of food and service it was very good. But I’m terms of beer and music it was not good at all. Therefore the 3...