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Last Update: Jun 13th, 2018
Mellow Mushroom Fort Lauderdale

Mellow Mushroom

525 N Federal Hwy Suite E
Fort Lauderdale FL, 33301
954 712-9527
Overall Rating
2.6
Food
Service
Ambiance
Value
Last Review
08/06/2015

Details

Hours: From their FB Page: No Hours Available
Attire: Casual
Parking: $5 Valet, Garage, Street
CC: Yes
Alcohol: Full Bar
Outside Dining: No

Pros

Salads are a good Value
Pizza and Beer

Cons

Difficult Parking
Expensive for Pizza and Beer
Strange, Retro Decor
Poorly Executed Food

Critic's Review

I didn't feel like going far, so I thought I'd see what was happening at the new Mellow Mushroom. I drive by almost every day and there's rarely anyone outside, but it is summer in South Florida so eating outside isn't terrible pleasant. They've put the hours on the Mellow Mushroom corporate website, but still no menu. Things apparently move slowly at corporate. They still don't have their hours on their Facebook page. They'll get around to it eventually.

No spots right behind the place and I wasn't going into that garage again (fool me once, shame on you), so I had to go around the block. The roads in this complex are a disaster; trucks parked make things worse.

Trucks Parked in Roadway Behind Mellow Mushroom

Nothing like squeezing as many apartments as possible on a plot of land. I found a spot on the side road and walked over; too hot for the outside bar so I went inside.

Mellow Mushroom Outside Bar

Same deal as last time; largely empty restaurant with 3 tables occupied and the hostess tries to seat me in the corner by the bathrooms. "Could I get a booth please". eye-roll, and I'm seated in a booth.

A server comes over and I order a drink. Nothing much has changed in a month. Just fewer people. Can't really judge much from a mid-summer crowd in Fort Lauderdale.

Mellow Mushoom Bar

This place is a bakery, so there's a lot of bread on the menu. I wasn't waiting for a pizza. Didn't really want a hoagie. I ordered a side salad and the meatballs appetizer.

My server seemed pleased that she didn't have to explain anything to me.

Mellow Mushroom Tea

The salad came out first. The small salads here are a good portion; a good deal for $3.99. I usually don't eat raw mushrooms, but I fully understand why they put them on the salad here.

Mellow Mushroom House Salad w/blue cheese

Music continues to be good here, with ZZ Top, Chili Peppers and Elton John. I was about halfway done with the salad when the meatballs came out.

Mellow Mushroom Meatball Trio

Here's the menu description of the dish:

MEATBALL TRIO
Three meatballs grilled with fresh mozzarella on a bed of red sauce with shaved Parmesan cheese and basil, sprinkled with breadcrumbs.

Apparently they leave the breadcrumbs off at this location. I didn't want to use the same fork for the meatballs and the salad, so I had to wait until I could get someone's attention to get another fork.

I didn't get the skewers at first. What we have here is pre-cooked meatballs that are cut in half, and then a slice of mozzarella is sandwiched in between. The meatball is then skewered back together.

Mellow Mushroom Meatball Split

I suspect if they'd baked this to get it hot and to melt the cheese it would have been better, but this was all room temperature. Not cold, but not really warm either. For some reason I was thinking about Firehouse Sub's meatball here. There's nothing positive to say about this appetizer.

Notice that picking garbage from the table isn't in the job description here. Nothing was removed even as I received the check.

Conclusion

Nothing new to report. Parking seems a bit worse considering that there were no customers and I still couldn't find a spot in the street nearby. I like the salads and not much else if you're not eating bread. Based on the soup and the meatballs I have doubts as to weather you can even expect that something you've tried at another location will be the same here.

Review 5/14/15

I decided to check out the garage here; I though about stopping in for an app on a Sunday afternoon. The garage is a disaster. When you enter, you can go up, or go left if you want to look for a space on the ground floor. But if you can't find one, you have to exit and circle back around. There looked like there were some spots available, but there are signs up allocating spots for different specifics. These 2 spots were allocated for Mellow Mushroom Take out.

Assigned Parking in Flagler

So I circled around and went up to the 2nd level. When I got to the end, I was greeted with a gate; a dead-end. The only way out was to try to turn around or back out. A real mess if there are other cars .

Dead End in Flagler Parking Garage

I decided to just go home. Too much trouble for a snack.

Review 5/15/15

The owner of Jersey Mike's in Delray Beach and Alladin's Eatery in Boca are opening a Mellow Mushroom in Downtown Fort Lauderdale.

The first order of business is parking. They have a valet in the back for $5 plus tip, and apparently there's garage parking, but no information about it; just the usual tow away signs at the entrance of the garage. I parked a block way in a public spot; this must be a disaster at dinner time.

They've been touting their outside space on FB, and I wondered where a "courtyard" might be. Did they have an atrium in the building or something? But no, it's just the sidewalk between the buildings. They have an outside bar and some wicker furniture; unfortunately it's right on US1.

Mellow Mushroom Outside Space

The building itself is very odd; the sign on the front has a bunch of doors but they're not the doors to the restaurant. You have to enter from the "courtyard". The hostess tried to steer me to the bar, then they tried to seat me at a small table near the bathrooms in a largely empty restaurant. More corporate brain-dead training. "How about one of these empty booths?". She seemed annoyed, but they always do.

The decor is retro-weird with a juvenile twist. The store in Delray is pretty conservative but this is just plain funky.

Mellow Mushroom Fort Lauderdale Decor

The strip that the store is in is designed for east-west storefronts, but this place spans several spaces north-south. The result is doors and windows all along the east and west side of the restaurant. The south side is the kitchen where you can watch dudes spinning pizzas, and to the north is the bar, which is designed more to look cool than to be particularly functional. They have 3 TVs which should be adequate for watching the playoffs or local sports.

Mellow Mushroom Fort Lauderdale Bar Area

It's not the kind of bar I'd want to spend my Saturday night. Between they have some nice booths and bench seating. I was in a booth suitable for 4; there was a couple in the next booth seemingly waiting for their food.

Mellow Mushroom Fort Lauderdale Seating

A server came over and I ordered an iced tea; no push-back on the extra lemon.

Mellow Mushroom Iced Tea

I asked her about the build your own salad; they have a section that says it's 79 cents for most typical ingredients: cucumbers, onions tomatoes. I figured you could have whichever ones you wanted, but they charge you $.79 for EACH ONE. $2.19 for cheese. So the salad I had yesterday at Salad Creations would have cost like $10, so I just went with a Caesar salad. I also ordered the Magic Mushroom soup, which is $5.99 at this location but only $3.99 in Delray. I'm not sure why they think they can charge more for everything in Fort Lauderdale, particularly off-season.

Music fits the 70's theme, with BTO's "Let it Ride" followed by some Doobie Brothers and Elton's "Funeral for a Friend'. Add in some George Harrison and you have a lot of 20-somethings tipping their heads. The music is pretty loud also.

As usual, my server asked if I cared which came out first and I said that I didnt, so they came out exactly together. This happens 100% of the time, so I'm not sure why they ask.

I tried the soup first.

Mellow Mushroom Magic Mushroom Soup

At first taste, I really didn't like the soup. Too much sherry, not enough seasoning. A lot of chunks of stuff in it. The orange color should have given it away.

Meanwhile, the caesar was pretty typical; not really enough dressing but I was afraid they'd charge me if I asked for extra. Just a regular salad. The croutons were kind of regular too. Better than the boxed kind, but not good enough for me to want to eat them

Mellow Mushroom Caesar Salad

As I ate the soup I liked it less. I added some salt. This is what happens when you make a soup from a recipe without tasting it as you make it. It just comes out wrong.

Mellow Mushroom Magic Mushroom Soup

As I was finishing the couple next to me got their pizza; they'd been waiting all this time. That's the problem with eating pizza "in", it takes too long to make a pizza from scratch in a restaurant unless you're hanging at the bar all night. I don't want to sit at a table for 25 minutes waiting for a pizza.

The bathrooms foolishly have some sort of strange gargoyles labeling them and the Men's room is labeled "Mermales" or something like that and I thought it said Mermaids, so I went into the ladies room. Luckily I didn't walk in on anything.

Conclusion

When I heard a Mellow Mushroom was opening in Fort Lauderdale, I thought it was a pretty good idea. But I think they blew it with this location and the decor. Delray smartly went more conservative, and the decor fits the clientele and the neighborhood. This place has an awkward feel; more like a hipster diner than a downtown Fort Lauderdale restaurant. The place probably looks better at night; there are too many windows and nothing good to look at surrounding the restaurant.

I might consider getting a pizza for take out, but there's no-where to park for pickups.

With difficult parking, Las Olas prices and an outdoor space that reminds me of the parking lot at the Tilted Kilt, I think it will be challenging to get big crowds here. Maybe when the other bars and restaurants open there will be a bar-hopping aspect to the area; but for now, expensive pizza isn't enough of a pull to get me here. There's nothing really compelling about the space; and nothing really unique about the menu; the most compelling "build your own" items are useless due to bad pricing policies.

Comment Policy Add Comment
Las Olas Worker
Reply
This location closed on May 31st
Administrator
Reply
I would have bet the Brass Tap closed before this place. They lost a bundle on this.
BenG
Reply
Their pizza was awful. Surprised it "hung in" that long. Good riddance.
Administrator
Reply
Mellow Mushrooms have been closing all over the country; it seems that 20-30 locations have closed in the last 2 years. A South Miami location closed in just over a year. Considering it costs ~ $1-3M to open one of these, it seems like a huge risk for the right to sell overpriced pizza while having to fork over 7% of sales to a franchisor who doesn't appear to know how to market a restaurant.

This place appears to be up for sale, with sales declining 30% after the first year. That's what happens when you have limited parking and a boatload of restaurants opening up across the street.
Administrator
Reply
The garage is a disaster. I actually hit a dead end and had to make a tight 3 point turn. Then there are spots allocated to different things, so you think you've found a spot and its "Take Out Only" or "Residents Only".
CS
Reply
agreed it's awful. For the residents too. Everyone that used to park on the ground floor / ramp (before Mellow opened) got squeezed up to the 2nd / 3rd floors, and it's been a domino effect. Will only get worse when Brass Taps opens
CraigT
Reply
There's an amazing lack of buzz for this place. I thought it would be a really big deal.
Administrator
Reply
The STILL don't have the hours or the menu on the Mellow Mushroom web site yet. Fantastic service for your $50K + 5% of sales.
Mactalent
Reply
I've been to Mellow Mushroom's in Asheville NC and Chatanooga TN and they were fun, both were in downtown areas where there is plenty of foot traffic. Food was just average though. In Fort Lauderdale everyone wants to drive and park close to the restaurant and there is nothing else to walk to. There is an empty lot next to the Fresh Market lot, maybe the owners of the restaurants should buy that land and make it a parking lot.
Administrator
Reply
both lots across the street are now under construction. Likely too expensive for a parking lot. They're building a law firm right across. There are deals to be made for after hours parking, but not during business hours.
Randi J
Reply
It's pretty clear from their Facebook page that the owners are more interested in running this as a bar than a serious restaurant. Just keep that in mind.
Administrator
Reply
I was surprised by the posts on their FB pages when I saw the restaurant. It's really not a bar/hangout spot, unless they're just hoping to get a big gathering in the courtyard/sidewalk. The bars don't compare to hanging out at Big City or the Royal Pig.
Administrator
Reply
We have the menu. Everything is $1 more than Delray Beach, which seems ridiculous since Delray is on the strip. $1 more on a $25 pizza is one thing, but $1 more on a $7 sandwich is 15%
Administrator
Reply
Opening Today, supposedly. Fresh Market's security costs just went up.
Ruth
Reply
It looks like they're going to try to make it a party spot rather than a casual restaurant. Could be a big mistake.
Administrator
Reply
I'm wondering where people are going to park.

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