My Gluten Free Girlfriend

Update: Scott at Mellow Mushroom contacted me today. “As for the gluten free pizza, it sounds like the pizza wasn’t fully cooked.  Every shift over the next couple of days will be making two gluten free pizza’s, one under cooked and one cooked properly, and will have the staff sample and see for themselves the difference.  Hopefully this will stress the importance of properly cooking gluten free pizzas.”  I have been offered a gift certificate to try again. In fairness to the company, my family will be revisiting the location soon using the certificate. I will post an update to this review at that point based on the quality of food and service.Update 7/29/2013:

My family revisited Mellow Mushroom around 5 pm on a Monday evening. I was given a gift card by the management that paid for this meal. The staff was very pleasant and accommodating and our meal was well prepared and tasty. The gluten free pizza was cooked correctly this time and it made a huge difference in the texture and flavor. Like I said in my original review, I had eaten at the Raleigh NC location and had a great meal. I expected that the underdone pizzas, order mix ups, and hurried staff at the Richmond location during our first visit was due to the time of day and day of the week we came as well as the newness of the location. If you would like to enjoy a gluten free pizza with your buddies the pizza at Mellow Mushroom is good. The toppings are fun and flavorful, and the crust when properly cooked is a crispy, thin, and tasty. The regular pizzas were a hit with my parents both times as well.

Original Mellow Mushroom Review 7/22/2013

I was extremely excited when I heard that Mellow Mushroom was coming to Richmond. I had eaten at the one on Raleigh NC last year and it was stellar. We were looking for a place to go for my birthday and decided to try out the new Mellow Mushroom Richmond Virginia location.

We arrived around 5:30 pm on a Sunday, and as expected for any new restaurant had about a 30 minute wait for seating. During this time we looked over the menu and had fun checking out the funky wooden sculptured ceiling and the murals on the walls. We were seated at a table and figured out what to order. The waiter came and got our drink orders. I was impressed that he remembered to bring my moms water without ice and our iced teas without lemons. My mom was especially impressed with her drink order being correct. Everyone gives her ice even when she requests none.

The evening started out well, until a waiter came by with wrong order # 1 of the evening. Before we had even ordered we were brought someone else’s salads. We told the waiter that we hadn’t even ordered yet and he took them away hopefully to the right table. I chalked this mix-up up to them being busy.

We ended up ordering four pizzas; two gluten free for Alan and I and two regular for my parents and aunt. We ordered a House Special and a Kosmic Karma gluten free pizza and they ordered a Thai Dye and a Magical Mystery Tour non gluten free pizza. As always, I let the server know that I was a celiac and to be very careful with cross contamination around our pizzas. He seemed to understand and hurried away.