Mellow Mushroom Estero — Restaurant in Florida

I’m writing this review today because I’m disappointed and sad, let me explain. First off, my name is Chad, I’ve been a server and restaurant manager for years (server for like 8 years, 2years of management) so it’s not a stretch to say I know how things work. Now with that being said I’m sad because I took my parents in to Mellow Mushroom a little over a week ago and our experience was pretty poor (I’ll give more details later), but when I asked them to go there tonight they didn’t want to because of that experience. Now I’ve been a few times and love the food, it’s been great every time, and service has been good my previous visits. My review is for service and management, how the situation was handled (or lack thereof). Thanks to some phone call timestamps, I was able to record exact times, this is not an exaggeration. We arrived at 6:36 June 30th, greeted and shown to a table immediately (Hosts did great, friendly and quick). I don’t have exact time that we were greeted, but it was long enough to be uncomfortable but we were waiting on my GF to meet up with us, (hence the accurate time stamps because I was texting & calling her) so we ordered drinks and apps when our sever was Alexa first came to the table. 5:46 we had ordered and at 5:50pm we got our drinks. So far that’s 14 minutes from walking in to getting drinks (remember no wait time). At 6:25 we got our full pretzels app 39 minutes after we ordered them. I don’t have the exact time for when we ordered our pizza (because I wasn’t annoyed enough yet) but we got the 2 pizzas at 6:44PM. Now let me explain why I’m upset. I get that sometimes things get caught up, or that it can be slow. When I can see the number of tickets hanging in the window and our sever chatting with coworkers while 2 out of the 4 people sit at my table with empty drinks I start to get on edge, hence why I started digging for time stamps. Throughout the entire dinner, no manager came to our table, no mention/apology for long wait times was made, and there were literally 20-30 min of people sitting at the table with nothing to drink w/o sharing. The thing that ticks me off the most though, is I quietly pulled aside the MOD as we were leaving and went over these times and explained how unhappy my parents were. The MOD a smaller woman with curly black hair (didn’t get her name) apologized and said, “I hope you come back.” Seriously…? In all honesty I tried to deal with it outside of a negative review but that didn’t work, so here we are. Take what you will from this, for other guests the food is great, def go try it out if you haven’t, but to the managers reading this; this is how you lose business. Failing to convert these situations is how businesses die in SW Florida. Anyway, thanks for coming to my Ted talk. -Chad

EDIT: This was origionaly a 1 star, has been edited to a 4 star as within a day the owner reached out to me and responded. Like I said in my original post, the food is very good try it if you haven't, and be patient, service will get...

AMAZING!!!! I went for dinner with my parents who were visiting me from out-of-town. I haven't been to a Mellow Mushroom since I attended Auburn University in Alabama years ago, so we went to the location on Eagle Village Drive by FGCU.

The management and staff here were phenomenal. The atmosphere was so upbeat and the restaurant was spotless no to mention decorated beautifully.

My mother admired a huge art piece that had lights on it so she asked the manager where they purchased it from and he told her that the owner himself put up the lights, talk about taking pride in your establishment.

Our server was so pleasant and friendly especially with my parents who are in their 80s, he really made them feel special.

We split a meatball hoagie, which was great especially the sauce I had to get extra because I was literally drinking it.

My family being mushroom lovers and seeing a pizza on the menu named "Holy Shitake" we knew we had to try it, we have never had a pizza like it before it was fantastic.

I definitely recommend the Mellow Mushroom location by FGCU, and will be back weekly.

Thank you for treating my parents and I to a great night, it's nice to see that great customer service paired with excellent food quality...

I really wanted to like this place but it was the worst experience I've had at a resturant :/ they didn't accept my friend's Ohio ID because they were "skeptical" about it, which is whatever, they were protecting themselves, but the server AJ just handed back her ID without saying anything and we literally sat there waiting for her beer after we ordered food. He comes back and we ask about the beer and he says "No I'm not serving her" and we're like wow why didn't you say something when you handed back the ID? He said "I thought it was implied" which is weird because he told us every detail about his life but couldn't communicate that he wasn't going to serve her beer. We would have gone somewhere else and not ordered food if he had used his words. It's a legal license so we ask to see a manager and he's no help and has his server talk over him for most of the time. They just apologize and seem indifferent about the fact that we're really uncomfortable sitting there. We won't be going there again. Order out if you really want their food, the...