Mellow Mushroom

It’s sad how bad the service is here, when the food is half way decent… don’t come for lunch.

The Good: Menu Options, draft beer selection, Dining Room Décor
The Bad: Service, Pricing
My family and I decided to try out this location on a Saturday night. There was a decent sized crowd there but the wait was only about 15 minutes. The décor of the restaurant is kind of Alice in Wonderland-​esque due to the cartoonish mushrooms painted on the walls, and the cartoon mascot greeting you at the entrance. This décor is unique and is a hit with kids.
Mellow Mushrooms has several gourmet items on the menu ranging from pizzas, to calzones, hoagies, and appetizers. On the menu, everything looked good and is made with fresh ingredients. We started out with pretzels as the appetizer. They were served with a red sauce and we added on beer cheese. They were delicious and I would highly recommend them. For our entrees we ordered the House Special pizza and the Funky Q Chicken pizza. The pizzas looked great but when they arrived at the table they were not hot. Which is something you wouldn’t expect from fresh pizza straight out of the oven. The taste of the pizzas were good, just not the temperature. But Mellow Mushroom does have an expansive draft beer list to select from. They have several local and national beers on rotating taps. So there are many options of beers to pair with your food.
The downside of the experience was the service. Once we were seated, the waitress was quick to take our drink and food orders, but didn’t come back often to check on us. Plus the drink orders put in for the bar took at least 10 minutes. So we really didn’t have a chance to sample more of the beers on tap. It was bad enough that the table next to us had to go up to the bar just to get refills. Our waitress did tell us when we ordered that the pizzas would take 25 minutes to prepare. We didn’t mind the wait as long our drinks were full, but they weren’t.
Our overall experience didn’t live up to expectations. There are many great menu items to choose from but the prices you pay for the gourmet experience doesn’t outweigh the slow service. Especially with so many other pizza options available in this city.

This place has some tasty pizzas! Definitely some unique combinations, and they have some great local beers on tap! Favorites were the Thai and the mushroom!

This mellow mushroom gets 4 stars from me for the large beer selection they offer. My only complaint about the beer is they don’t offer a proper beer list to the customer. This forces the server to rattle off beers and leaves you overwhelmed with choices. The pizza and service have been slow a few times but not always. The pizza always tastes fresh though it can take a while to make. If you are not in a huge hurry then stop here and enjoy yourself!

We went at 330 on a Sunday. Pretty slow so timing wasn’t that much of an issue. We did wait awhile for our apps (wings and bruschetta). Both were pretty good. Then I had the steak and cheese hoagie. Not impressed. Not a lot of flavor and not a lot of meat. The service was good as our server came back to check on things often and appropriately timed. She was the best part of the experience honestly. I will come back again, but basically to try the pizza. If it’s not great then I prob won’t ever be back.

We really enjoyed our salad & pizza, I would totally go back for them, on the other hand the service was so bad we probably never will.
We were seated, our waitress came by got our drink order, our food order & we never saw her again till she dropped off the check. We sat there with empty glasses in a restaurant with only 4 tables & no one came to check on us. Totally would understand had they been busy but there were at least 3 servers & a manager on duty and, like I said, 4 tables. Unacceptable.

The food was just ok, and our waitress was fun, but it took FAR longer than we were told upon arrival. The place was pretty empty, so there really was no reason for such a long wait.
On top of everything, we were told we would be getting a discount on our bill because of the wait, but when the bill came, nothing. Why even say something if you aren’t going to fulfill that promise?

Never had a bad pizza here, and I’ve tried 6 different ones they offer. All so good!

I have to say, I was disappointed. The people we went with were raving about this place so I expected more. The salads and appetizers came out at the same time and a little slowly because the pizzas came out while we were still eating those. The crust is whole grain and chewy and doughy, not my style. They do have a great variety of pizza toppings. They are pricey to the point I was stunned. Service was solid if not great. We had to flag him down once to get more drinks. Good beer selection, wine selection is borderline fair to bad. Plenty of good pizza in Cincinnati so if its pizza you want go somewhere else. If you want beer and TV with some pizza on the side this may be your place.

Great pizza, I love their whole wheat crust! We usually get the magical mystery tour. The beer selection is pretty good too (36 taps), but be aware that anything above 7% comes in a 10oz snifter.

My sister and I came in to have lunch at Mellow Mushroom Hyde Park this Thursday, October 15 around 1:30 PM, and were extremely disappointed. I want to preface my review by saying that we are both full-​time servers who earn our living from tips we receive based on the service we provide to our customers. We are entirely sympathetic with things beyond a server’s control such as being short-​staffed, an unexpectedly swamped restaurant, or the kitchen running behind, but unfortunately, our experience could have been better if we had received better service.
My sister and I sat at the bar, and received our drinks and placed our order for a buffalo chicken pizza quickly, but that was the last interaction we had with our server before we asked for our check. It took forever to get our food, but again, 9 out of 10 times, that is due to the kitchen and not the server’s fault. When our pizza was delivered by a kitchen employee, we were not given silverware, plates, or napkins. Our server was standing right there, talking with another couple at the bar but didn’t ask us if we needed anything else before he disappeared to attend to the 3 other tables in the restaurant. We didn’t have time to wait, so my sister and I ate our pizza off of the pan it was delivered on and used cocktail napkins we took from the caddy on the bar. While we ate, the FOH manager talked to the two parties on either side of us (the only other folks sitting at the bar), checking on how their food was and asking if the service was okay. We were completely passed over by the manager, as we ate without plates, silverware, or napkins. In my 6 years of restaurant experience, I know that with any other manager I’ve worked with, this would be absolutely unacceptable, but this didn’t seem to be the case today.
When our server finally talked to us again, it was time for us to get our check and leave. We left cash so that we wouldn’t have to wait for a credit card to be run. I had been to Mellow Mushroom in Hyde Park once before when they first opened, and remember service being poor then. I wanted to give the place another chance, so my sister and I decided to eat there for lunch today and I wish we hadn’t. As I said before, we are sympathetic to factors beyond a server’s control, but with three tables and six bar seats, our server wasn’t even running a full section. This, combined with the manager seeming to talk to everyone in the place except for us made for a disappointing experience.
We are especially disappointed in the service because the food was amazing and the beer selection was top-​notch, albeit overpriced, so we would love to return, but will not do so because of the service. My sister and I said that we would maybe carry out from Mellow Mushroom in the future, however we cannot see ourselves dining in ever again.

This place has a nice selection of beers on draft. The bartenders are good at making suggestions and feely offer samples to find what you like. I have only tried the Holy Shiitake pizza, but It delicious so why mess with success. The décor is a bit over the top– like a Chuck-​E-​Cheese for adults. I tend to eat up front at the bar by a window– which they open in nice weather or outside near the parking lot in nice weather. It’s a great place to watch a game, eat pizza and have a beer or two.

Honestly, I wanted to love it. I really liked the Mellow Mushroom in Charlottesville, Virginia so decided to give this one a try. It’s way overpriced, there’s a lot of dough, and there’s just better places to get pizza in Cincinnati.
I was with a group of 4 and we were all underwhelmed. This is the city of A Tavola, Adriatico’s, Dewey’s, and Italianette. Mellow Mushroom’s gotta up their game a little.

It taste like DiGiorno self rising crust you buy in the frozen section at Kroger. Good selection of craft beers tho. But that’s about it.

I really wanted to give this place a higher rating given I’ve only heard incredible things about not only their amazing pizza, but the knowledgable staff and the craft beer selection. Unfortunately, the experience wasn’t what I expected, however, giving them the benefit of the doubt since it was my first time going today, I’ll round up and give Mellow Mushroom a 3.
Service: 1
Food: 4
Here’s the issue. It was 1:45pm and I decided to join my family for a late lunch. Since this place always looks so packed at dinner time, lunch seemed like an excellent idea to beat the rush. Boy were we wrong. We were seated right away, but didn’t get to eat a bite of food until 3:00. Over an hour later, which I find funny because our waiter told us «I’ll have your food ready in 15 minutes.» Here’s the issue I have with this… our server didn’t once apologize for the food being slow, didn’t warn us it was taking longer than expected, and definitely didn’t check on us while we waited. The place was pretty much dead with only 4 other tables and they all seemed to get their food so I’m not sure what the problem was. After bringing us our food he said, «Sorry the kitchen got a lot of orders at once.» That’s a BS excuse in my book as having worked in a restaurant kitchen before, getting hit with a bunch of orders at once is the norm and should be handled easily or you shouldn’t be preparing food. Also, we did not receive our food all at once (⁴⁄₅ of the orders). We were still waiting on a hoagie for at least 10 more minutes.
One other minor issue with service I had was the lack of knowledge with regards to making beer recommendations. My dad asked what pilsners were on tap and instead of suggesting pilsners, the waiter listed off all the IPAs they had on tap. Definitely not the same.
As far as the food goes, I’d have to call it the redeeming quality of Mellow Mushroom! I found it to be quite tasty. I got the «Holy Shitake» pizza and enjoyed it a lot. It was flavorful, had a good blend of cheeses, and plenty of mushrooms. The crust was the perfect ratio of doughy and crispy. The only minor complaint is that there was way too much garlic butter spread on the crust. Pizza is already greasy so it seems unnecessary to slather the stuff on. Really no complaints on food all around at our table! From the hoagie one person ordered, to the calzone and salad ordered by other members of my family, all food was enjoyed. Prices are very expensive, with a small, 10-​inch pizza being almost $ 14, but it was tasty. Definitely not an everyday family type of place at a price like that.
We definitely all enjoyed the food, however my family tends to be impatient so I think that the service we received today was the last straw for them. I would be willing to give it one more shot. I could see how it would a great place to sit at the bar with a couple of friends and enjoy some beer and pizza on a weekend, assuming the quality of service was better.

I’m so sad to give this rating, and it’s based off of one (and my first) experience here so take it for what it’s worth. I was with a fairly large group, 8 total. There was a little long of a wait to place our order. But that was nothing compared to the wait for our food. Half of us got our pizza after almost an hour of waiting, and our four other friends had to sit there, starving, for about another thirty minutes before they got their pizza. The kicker… their pizza was BURNT. Kind of ironic. Anyway, the manager handled it about as great as you could in that situation; the four friends who waited didn’t have to pay and she was very apologetic. I was also surprised that our actual waiter didn’t even really apologize at all, and he was still slow to get us our checks after all that.
On the plus side, my pizza was delicious! I like that you can get half and half of their specialty pizzas. I got the Thai one and the one with shiitake mushrooms. Absolutely delicious!

Alright, I tried this place for a second time and it was still disappointing. The service is ok. lots of young servers who are willing to please clients, but forget easily and tend to be awkward.
The food is just meh. It’s kind of expensive (salads for $ 7 – 10, pizzas for $ 12+), and what you get doesn’t end up being that great. Everything feels really greasy and the flavors are just lackluster. The salads are simple, I’ve gotten a side sized tossed salad for $ 4.95 and we split it as an app between the two of us before we got our small pizza.
Overall, not worth it. It’s definitely a chain style place, and for this amount of money, I’d rather go to Dewey’s.

I don’t get why people don’t like Mellow Mushroom… I really like it!
— The décor is awesome, and I love the cool beer signs and local stuff they have on the walls.
— We sat at the bar, and the beer choices on tap were really good (this is a key selling point for me for a restaurant). My fiancé and I ordered craft beers, ranging from $ 3.50 to $ 6 a pint, all very reasonable prices. And they had the seasonal Rhinegeist on tap!
— Service is really attentive and friendly. The bartender immediately gave us menus and offered up suggestions on what to order because we wanted to try something new. We ordered an appetizer, so that made the long wait for the pizza a little more bearable, but it did take about 20 minutes to get our pizza.
— The pizza is really good! We were torn between two different pizzas, and our bartender suggested we split the pizza in half so we can try both. What a great idea! I didn’t even know that was an option. We ordered a medium pizza (6 big slices) that was half thai dye and half kosmic karma. We really liked the thai dye pizza a lot (thai style curry sauce with chicken and bazil), but we thought the sauce was a little too sweet… It was better with red pepper flakes on it to balance it out. We didn’t like the kosmic karma as much (pesto, mozzarella, and tomatoes) because it was super oily… The oil from the pesto made the crust soggy, and it was almost impossible to pick up. When they rang up our pizza, the thai dye was more expensive so I thought we might get charged the price of one thai dye, or at least get charged a fee for splitting the pizza, but we didn’t. In fact, they split the price down the middle ($ 10.23 for half a thai dye and $ 9.72 for half a kosmic karma). I was pleasantly surprised with the price!
I’ll definitely be coming back the next time we’re craving craft beers and pizza in Hyde Park.

Weird.
I did not understand why this place got a three star rating? Even though the reviews were not good, we still wanted to check this place out. I’ve been to a mellow mushroom years ago in another state and really enjoyed my pizza. This location just opened up a couple of months ago (located next to Piada, Fusion and Orange Leaf). I wanted to wait till the crowd/​hype died down.
We dined in on a weekday so it was pretty slow. We were seated right away. The server was really friendly and chatty. We got our waters right away, but not beers/​wine. I think the server was new.
She was helpful and gave us the specials. Mentioned that if we downloaded the app, that we would get an appetizer for free which was the bruschetta. I was on board for that.
Drink orders my husband got the IPA (Heavy Seas Loos Cannon) for $ 3.50. I got the Monday special. Buy a bottle of the Red Ruffino Chianti for $ 10.00. That’s a deal!
We got our Bruschetta right away and was really pleased. Loved the Balsamic drizzled on top and basil was fresh along with the bread and tomatoes.
For dinner I ordered the Holy Shiitake Pie (10″ small for $ 13.95) which has olive oil and garlic base, shiitake, button and portobellow mushrooms, caramelized onions, mozzarella and MontAmore cheeses. It’s also drizzled with garlic aioli and black truffle oil. Garnished with fresh chives and shaved parmesan. Their Pizzas are hand tossed which she warned us that it may take 20 – 25 mintues to get our specialty pizza. Which was fine. My husband ordered the build your own salad (spinach $ 4.50) additionals are $.85 per vegetable which he added Cucumbers, Broccoli, Green peppers, onions, & mushrooms. You may add protein and cheese but it is additional as well. This could get expensive so I would never order this.
We got our pizza and it was really delicious!!! Loved the crust, the garlic aioli and black truffle oil drizzled on top. It added great flavor. I wish I would have gotten a medium! I tried to compare this with the wild mushroom pizza from dewey’s and it was hard to choose.
I noticed on the menu that they have gluten free crust (alittle more expensive). I might have to check this out when I return. This place is great for vegetarians. Alot to choose from.
I really loved the décor! I love mushrooms, so I was in heaven when everything was music and mushroom themed. I like the set up of the restaurant as well (nice contemporary furniture). It’s very spacious and open.
Overall I had a great experience at Mellow Mushroom. Restaurant clean, good atmosphere, and great food. The server was a bit slow, but she was super sweet.
I would definately come back.

The shortcomings of my first visit have been erased. That must have been a bad day…
Came in solo to meet up with a friend at the bar. Well before I could get to the bar the GM, Mel, is all about making sure I sit where I want. She escorts me to the bar and as the bartender on duty is picking up food for another guest jumps behind the bar to get me a beer. She answers my questions about several of the beers (Mel knows her stuff) and gets me a glass of Black IPA and menu.
The bartender comes over as soon as she’s finished dropping of food to the other guest and introduces herself. We talk briefly about some of the beers and the menu. I order the Garlic Parm Pretzels with Beer Cheese for my friend and I to share on her recommendation.
Holy crap are those pretzels good! Maddy told me that they were awesome and she was right! They basically take their pizza dough and shape into a pretzel shape and bake them off with garlic butter and parmesan cheese. It’s served with a FANTASTIC marinara that is very simple. A straight forward interpretation that puts the tomatoes in front accented with basil, oregano and garlic. The side of beer cheese is very flavorful! Do not dunk your pretzel as deep as you can, a little goes a long way. Smooth, creamy and very rich. Just wonderful.
Much better experience the second time. I don’t know where the pros were on that first visit but I will definitely be back sooner rather than later.
Oh, and even though it was a beautiful day outside the window was closed. I’m guessing I’m not the only one that didn’t like that «feature» and they paid attention. Kudos.