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| - Like many regular customers of the Mellow Mushroom on Selwyn, we were thrilled when we heard there was going to be a location closer to us in Ballantyne. This review is based on our first three experiences at the new Ballantyne location. I have rated each visit separately below. My overall 2-star rating is based on a composite of all 3 trips there.
Visit #1 (3 stars)
We first visited the new location a few days after they opened. We expected that within the first few days, some things would be slower than normal and that's fine. We entered and found the lobby area to be chaos with people milling around either waiting to be seated or trying to figure out how/where to get takeout.
Seating: We were finally seated after a reasonable wait. They took us to a section in the back near the kitchen. It's behind a wall and underneath the stairs. DO NOT ever let them seat you there. It was very loud and very cramped. There was a large group behind us and we might as well have been sitting at their table. I had to move my chair to the side of our table because as it was set up, the servers kept bumping into me every time they walked past. It's just really not a great set up. The server was pleasant, but before we even ordered, she warned us twice that the kitchen was going to be very slow. OK, the warning was good and understandable for the first week.
Food: Here is where we made our mistake. We ordered a 14 inch pizza but asked for some extra cheese. Just a bit extra, but not double the normal cheese. The pizza came out about 40 minutes later (slow kitchen) and was horrendous. There was so much cheese and sauce that you couldn't pick up a slice. It was not good, but in the kitchen's defense, we did ask for extra cheese. We ate with fork & knife because it was the only way to eat the goopy mess. Lesson learned: No extra cheese. Overall, we left unsatisfied with the pizza, but figured it was partially our own fault for asking for something different.
Visit #2 (5 stars)
Our second trip was fantastic. We were seated quickly upstairs and the atmosphere was 100x better than the corner they put us in the previous time. Our server was friendly and fairly attentive. A manager stopped by to ask us how everything was. The pizza (same order as last time, but WITHOUT the extra cheese) was perfect. It was the pizza we had come to expect from the Selwyn location. All was good and we looked forward to our next visit.
Visit #3 (0 stars)
It became very clear to us in our third visit that this restaurant is understaffed and overwhelmed. Our third visit was greeted by the same entry area chaos as the first visit. We were finally seated in a nice booth to the left side of the restaurant. Our server was friendly and attentive. We ordered the exact same pizza as in visit #2 that we enjoyed so much. The pizza took 45 minutes to arrive and our server kept coming by to apologize for the delays. The booth behind us was complaining constantly to the server about the wait. The table to our side was served salad without dressing and had to wait a long time to get the dressing. But, back to our pizza. Remember how wonderful it was in visit #2? It was nearly unrecognizable. The cheese was a soupy mess and there was a huge puddle of oil/grease in the center. The cheese and sauce didn't go near the edges, so the crust was huge sections of bubbled dough with no toppings. We told our server that it didn't look good and she agreed. Because we were in a hurry (and had already waited 45 minutes for the pizza), we decided to make the best of it and try to eat it. The server said she would get a manager to come by. The manager never came. We did our best to eat the pizza. If I was MM management, I would be embarrassed to serve that pizza. We finally got our check and found that they had comped us for one soda. Not the pizza, not two sodas. One soda. Still no manager. I asked for a to-go cup for my soda before we left and the server said she would get me one. Apparently, my request was rhetorical because we never saw the server again.
If this was our first trip there, we would never return. It was that bad. I hope management gets stuff ironed out quickly. It's apparent that the entry area needs to be changed/improved. They may want to move the takeout orders to the end of the bar or further from the masses waiting to be seated. Most disturbing so far has been the wild inconsistency in the pizza. We plan to give it another try at some point because we know how good it can be. Overall, it's only 2 stars for us.
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