I was never the kid who refused to eat my pizza crusts. Quite the contrary, actually—I love good pizza crust. I love the tender, crunchy char of good Neapolitan. I love the thicker hand-tossed style available at places like Damgoode Pies. The crisp New York-style pizza at Iriana’s and Vino’s are the stuff of my dreams. I love good pizza crust. Little Rock has a lot of good places that work magic with crust and toppings. West Little Rock’s Mellow Mushroom is not one of those places.

First, the good stuff. The stuffed portobello mushrooms are pretty tasty, if a touched under-cooked. Lots of feta and mozzarella top a couple of large, moist mushroom caps to create a delicious combination of flavor. The addition of fresh, dressed greens to the plate was also nice, as I always love to see places making their garnishes edible as opposed to just random greenery. The plate was a little heavy on the balsamic—and a sickly sweet balsamic at that. This odd sweetness was a sign of things to come.

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Our pizza was one of the house specialties, the Kosmic Karma—which we felt fit nicely with the Grateful Dead bear rip-off dancing mushrooms and psychedelic Johnny Cash painting that are part of Mellow Mushroom’s Cheech and Chong meet Spencer’s Gifts approach to decorating. On first blush, the pizza looked good, with fresh sliced tomatoes, lots of cheese, a delightful swirl of bright green pesto—and a crust that seemed crispy, at least judging from the Parmesan-dusted edges.


William Butler Yeats once wrote, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” and I believe he had just finished eating at Mellow Mushroom when he penned those words. There are few things worse than grabbing a slice of pizza and having it go so limp that most of the toppings slide right off. The crust was indeed crispy on the edges, right until the sauce started—where it turned into a soggy mess. I’ve eaten tiramisu where the coffee-soaked ladyfingers had more support and texture than this crust. Was it over tossed? Under cooked? Just plain awful? I don’t know, but I couldn’t finish even a single slice.

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Mellow Mushroom has some things going for it: toppings are very fresh, and our portobello appetizer was tasty. But that oddly sweet crust just couldn’t stand up to even the light toppings of our order—I would hate to see what would happen to this pizza if it were piled up like Iriana’s “Sweep the Floor” or the Vino’s “Special.” Little Rock is a good town for pizza, and while the hippy-kitsch of Mellow Mushroom might be fun for a laugh now and again, I was feeling anything but mellow when I paid my bill and left. When a slice of pizza swings like a pendulum, somebody in the kitchen has dropped the ball. The place has some good things—like a pretty good beer selection—but for the amount of money I laid down for this soggy pie, I could have had good pizza at any number of local joints. And folks wonder why I’m always on about “eat local.”

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