Mellow Mushroom

If you enjoy eating your pizza in a psychadelic environment, Mellow Mushroom is the place for you. It combines a wide variety of delicious pizzas (I particularly enjoy the Kosmic Karma, with pesto and sundried tomatoes, and the Philosopher’s Pie, which features steak) with the amusement induced by looking at giant, tie-​dye mushrooms while you eat. In addition, the restaurant offers a decent gluten-​free crust, and a somewhat terrible cheese replacement (not recommended unless absolutely necessary). Pizzas are obviously better when not gluten-​free, but the gluten-​free crust here is as good as any I have encountered at a restaurant. Plus, they have trivia nights!

I love the food at Mellow Mushroom. I won’t eat any other type of pizza. If I was to be completely honest, I say it feels like this location is slipping a bit. Lately, more than half of the time, my to-​go orders are wrong. Either they forget to make my items completely, or in the situation I faced tonight, entire items were left off of my check. The only excuse was, «it’s not on there.» Yes, I too can read. A minimal focus on customer service could make this a five-​star restaurant overnight. Suggestions: speak to your customers (when they walk in the door). Make things right by your customers. Act like you care what your customers think. Smile — you’re working for tips. Just a few of my observations lately.

Our server, Adam, was the best. Happy hour prices are unbeatable. A Sunday staple. Peanut butter milk stout is a real winner. There are a few appetizers half price. Most of the servers, in fact, are quite good. *****edited because of Regan, our ill-​equipped server, who left us without drinks for ten minutes.

Food was good but how am I supposed to enjoy a meal seated next to two screaming brats? Ruined a nice birthday dinner.

Went a couple of weeks ago and while pizza was good, as usual, and table service was good there was an incident in the bar that will prohibit me from returning again.
I had to go into the restroom and walking through the bar was difficult. There was a group of about 6 young men chatting with a female bartender and among themselves. They were blocking the isle and so I said excuse me so I could pass through. After looking at me, and then ignoring me three times, I moved a table and chairs to pass through.
Returning was the same. I asked politely and no one moved. Then I heard the bartender say «why can’t old people just stay home». I am in my 50’s and found that very upsetting. I paid my bill and left. While I won’t «stay home», I will certainly spend my money elsewhere.

Absolutely delicious. We went at a peculiar time around 4pm on a Tuesday, so we were seated and served immediately. We also managed to come in at Happy Hour for appetizers, so my friends and I split a serving of their cheesy breadsticks — such toasty goodness. The personal pan small-​size pizzas are more than enough, especially if you want to share. 4 gargantuan slices for one person is pretty above-​average for me. I managed to save a slice for lunch the next day before scarfing the rest down. Not to say this is only a «scarfing down» pizza. Oh no, Mellow Mushroom does much better than that. I got the Magical Mystery Tour, truly an experience chock full of mushrooms, pesto, and cheese galore. Tasty, tasty. The pizza dough was the perfect amount of chewy and crispy.
For the vegans and vegetarians, Mellow Mushroom offers several options. I think they might do gluten-​free as well. Plenty of seating at this venue in booths, tables, and by the bar. I really like how diverse the lighting is in this place. Definitely not your average pizza joint.

Mellow Mushroom is one of the few chain restaurants I can get down with. I’ve visited a few while traveling. The Nashville location is excellent as the others have been. Thank you for offering vegan cheese, loads of veggies and meat free meat! That’s a good pizza pie. The craft root beer was fabulous.
This location doesn’t have an ideal parking situation.

I hate to do this but the experience for first time was not a good one. I asked for no onions. made it clear was first time I was there. Didn’t realize a shrimp hoag would have mushrooms. They removed it. but to my surprise it came back so spicy with jerk u couldn’t eat it. Never was asked was meal OK … Did not eat it wasn’t asked if they could get me anything else. I said I didn’t know about mushrooms and the jerk waiter said it was on menu. Was rushed to order when I arrived. Can be sure won’t return out 16 $ customers wrong I guess !

I went through the effort of downloading the Unilocal app on my phone in order to write this review so you know I feel strongly about what I’m about to say.
I was really excited to visit Mellow Mushroom for the first time in several years but this experience was not at all what I expected. After being seated it took about 5 – 7 minutes for the server to greet our table. Once we placed our drink and food orders it took another 7 – 10 minutes to get our drinks (and its not like they were super complicated — a diet coke and a water). We got a half order of pretzels as an appetizer and a hoagie and a calzone as entrées. The pretzels took an additional 15 minutes after our drinks came out (so about 20 – 25 minutes after we ordered) and the food didn’t come out until about 45 minutes after we were seated.
Meanwhile, there were open tables everywhere and the restaurant was not even remotely crowded. Our waitress did not apologize once for the delay with any of our food and drinks. We ended up just taking our entrees to go because we didn’t have time to eat by the time they came out to the table.
All in all, a terrible experience.
And, for the record, I worked at a Mellow Mushroom in Atlanta several years ago and that is NOT «just how long the food takes.» I mean, maybe at that location but certainly not all Mellow locations. I stand by this review.

This place is da bom! Totally great! Mellow mushroom is like a Nashville landmark. It’s such a unique, weird, awesome place.
The food is awesome here (we only ever order pizza). They do gluten free if you need it, and they have a huge selection of awesome beer!
I’d have to say one of my favorite beers that they offer is Arrogant Bastard (San Diego).
I recommend it to everyone. It’s a very casual atmosphere (across the street from Vanderbuilt).

Not worth the price. It’s still just pizza!
You can get much better for less money. Unless you need a bunch of weird toppings, go somewhere else.

I’ve always loved the Mellow Mushroom chain, and since moving to Nashville it continues to be a favorite. The food is always consistent, the staff is friendly and not shy to admit mistakes, even compensating us for a whole meal because the order took too long in their opinion. The Holy Shiitake Pie is the best «unique» pizza I have ever had. I could eat that all day, never gets old. Their hoagies are also amazing especially the mushroom club, soo delicious! Definitely a good beer selection AND the best part is that their kitchen is usually open until 10 or 11!

I can’t believe this restaurant has been here since the Civil War. How could anyone have time to fight when there was such dope pizza to eat?!
Cool atmosphere, servers are super chill, and good pizza!

On pure pizza alone, this place is the 4^th best pizza place in Nashville (after Desano, Two Boots, and Bella Nashville)…
I will be honest that their non pizza items are only slightly above average, but lets be honest, you come to a place like this for the pizza.
I have always had amazing service every time I went to Mellow Mushroom (then again I only go on off nights and when the college students aren’t in town).

For a chain restaurant there pizzas are good. I have not eaten at a Mellow M. In probably 10 years and I ordered a thin crust mushroom pie and it was delicious. The BBQ chicken was mighty tasty as well. They also have a nice draft beer selection.
The service is was a little slow, we waited about 10 min. before anyone took our drink order. But all in all we had fun and the pizza was very good.
One great thing is that they have complimentary valet parking, make sure and take advantage of this service because the parking is not good and you will get towed.

We ordered delivery from here and it took almost 1.5 hours! I understand that it takes time to deliver but but I think that’s a little too long.
The pizza was good. It didn’t come cold but it definitely wasn’t hot.
Id eat it again. However, with all the negative reviews about service I don’t think I’d go out of my way to visit the restaurant.

Ordered delivery: the charge they put on my card was more than the amount of the emailed receipt by 5 dollars. They gave no option for adding tip via credit card — usually you can add that upon delivery. The pizza also arrived after 1.5 hours and was cold.
Pizza: its a thicker crust with a sweet flavor to the dough. they put a weird unidentified white sauce on all of the pizzas. overall fine and would eat it again.

Given that I spend most of my life being a diligent student in the building across the street, I either come here or eat pizza from Mellow Mushroom more often than I’d really like to admit. But I’m admitting it here.
As far as pizza in the area goes, Mellow Mushroom is definitely near the top. Their pizzas are interesting, fresh and I appreciate the gluten free crust option. Also, they are used to dealing with groups of students and always ask us if we want to split the check, which appreciate since I know it’s a hassle (and in most cases, not something I even ask for, which makes their offering even more appreciated!)
My biggest gripe is that the salad selection leaves a LOT to be desired. I know, people don’t really come here for the salad, but sometimes I just don’t want pizza. (Please don’t judge me!!)
Definitely a solid choice in this area, where most of your other options are either overpriced or underwhelming.

This visit was on a Tuesday at 11:00 AM. The restaurant had just opened when I arrived and I think I caught them a little too early.
I ordered a house salad, a slice of pizza and a half order of pretzels (3). The house salad came quickly, but looked a little wilted. The pretzels came next and were fine, but seemed a little more overcooked than I normally get at other MMs. Finally, the pizza slice arrived after about 25 minutes — I had enough time to eat my salad and the pretzels. The pizza crust was certainly overcooked and not appealing, again, not my normal experience at other locations.
I don’t know why it took so long to get the pizza slice or why the items were overcooked when hardly anyone was in the restaurant. My server was nice enough but didn’t seem to have a high degree of urgency for getting a single pizza slice out. Maybe the issue was a too hot oven, an inattentive cook or just the MO here. Regardless, it was just not a good experience.
Again, I normally love Mellow Mushroom wherever I’ve found them, but this one just is not one I love.

I can’t even count how many times I’d eaten at this place whilst enrolled at Vandy. Now that the wife and I have officially moved back to Nashville, we wanted to see if it was as good as it used to be. Short answer: Yes!
We have been to several Mellow Mushrooms locations across the country, but the employees here seem to be the most stoned. I bet that’s why the food is the best. I love the psychedelic décor. We got great service from a super friendly waitress. The Mighty Meaty is a usual part of our order, but today we also decided to try out The Caesar pizza.
The Mighty Meaty is your standard meat-​lovers pizza: pepperoni, sausage, ground beef, ham, and bacon. It was fantastic as always. This is one of the few places that puts big strips of bacon on their meat lovers, as opposed to crumbled bacon. It’s waaaaay better. The crust is almost as enjoyable to eat as the pizza itself (almost).
The Caesar pizza was an olive oil and garlic based pizza with pesto chicken, provolone, mozzarella, and feta topped with a Caesar salad and roma tomatoes. It’s apparently unique to the Nashville location. Wow, it was phenomenal! I loved the bite of the Caesar dressing and pesto. The chicken was tender and juicy, and the veggies were very fresh. I also liked the shaved parmesan. I’m really glad we were adventurous, because I’m definitely getting this next time.
It’s nice to see that Mellow Mushroom has maintained their quality over the years. We will be back… many, many times!