Pizza! Pizza! - Part 1

We've been trying out a TON of gluten-free pizza lately - I'm excited to share it all with you! More posts to come...


Thank goodness for Twitter. 

Without it, I would have never found out that my absolute favorite pre-Celiac pizza chain was working on a gluten-free pizza. 

It also would have taken me MUCH longer to figure out that the store five seconds from my house had started serving it.

I can't even begin to describe to you how happy this makes me.

In an attempt to explain, let me give you a little history on my love for Mellow Mushroom. The Hubby and I bought our house in 2007 and had to completely re-learn our surroundings. The first thing you find when you move? A grocery store. One one of our first drives between our house and the nearest grocery store (Albertson's, which is now a shiny new super-awesome Kroger that sells Kinnickinnick among tons of other gluten-free goodies), we noticed this funky-looking place called Mellow Mushroom, and the name of the place rang a bell - some guys at work had raved about the pizza, and the name (unsurprisingly) stuck with me.

We went once not long after that and fell in love with it. The best pizza I've EVER had. Beautifully hand-tossed, perfectly chewy, browned to perfection crust with every topping you can imagine available. Great beer selection, laid-back vibe. Our kind of place.

Fast forward a few months into early 2008. The Hubby and I, after much anticipation, started the dreaded but necessary process of remodeling our kitchen. This meant a new routine of microwaveable meals, take out, and eating out at restaurants...and because of its proximity to our house, we ended up visiting Mellow Mushroom at least once a week for several months. 

Ironically enough, it was during one of these visits that I finally decided to see a specialist about my stomach troubles that had been rapidly increasing in frequency. I got halfway through my first piece of pizza before literally doubling over with the worst stomach pain I've ever felt. Come to find out, they put EXTRA gluten in their pizza crust  (no I'm not kidding) to make it taste as good as it does. That was the last time we went for pizza at Mellow Mushroom.

Until now.

The Hubby follows our local Mellow Mushroom on Twitter. One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, he saw their announcement that they were (finally!) serving gluten-free pizza, and we were waiting for a table there a few hours later. 


Here's where the cool stuff starts. I asked for a drink menu while we were waiting at the bar, and noticed that gluten-free beverages were labeled as such. I treated myself to a Strongbow cider - and it was awesome. First time I'd tried one, and I definitely had a second one to wash down my pizza.


Once we were seated, I mentioned right away to our server that I would need to order gluten-free and asked if there was a separate menu. She sat down in the booth beside me and showed me this:

It's a blurry iPhone picture (sorry!), but it's a listing of the ingredients of their gluten-free pizza crust (bean flour, rice flour, tapioca flour and starch, xantham gum, salt, yeast, egg, cider vinegar, sugar, canola oil, and calcium-something-or-other that I'm assuming is a preservative or binder), as well as all of the toppings that they have that are gluten-free. See that "Certified Gluten-Free" bit in the lower right-hand corner? Sweet.


So...I ordered my Strongbow along with my very own pizza (only comes in one size like most of the gluten-free pizzas I've had...good excuse to get one all to myself) topped with mozzarella, ricotta, tomato, and spinach. 

Sorry - this picture was a total afterthought. I had downed an entire piece and was reaching for a second before The Hubby reminded me that you guys might want to see what it looked like.

I have to say, the experience was great. The staff is well-trained and take cross-contamination issues seriously. After ordering ricotta for my pizza, our server came to double-check that I had indeed seen it on the list of approved ingredients, as the cooks wanted to verify. The best part? The pizza was GOOD. Not the best gluten-free pizza I've ever had, but (hear me out!) definitely not anywhere near being bad, and we will absolutely be going back...soon. 

The crust was different than any I've had - the outer crust (my favorite part) was light and airy with a good crunchy outside and chewy interior...things that you don't find often in gluten-free breads. I'm convinced it was the tapioca flour that made the difference.

My usual routine is to eat around half of my pizza, then take the rest home for later. This pizza was awesome reheated in the toaster oven.  I'm excited to see if the pizza improves as the cooks get used to this whole gluten-free thing.

I was so excited about our whole experience that I sent an email to their corporate office thanking them as soon as we got home. This is the response that I got back from the "Ambassador of Fun" from our local store:

Dear Kelly,

We are so glad you enjoyed your Gluten-Free experience with us! We just recently started offering Gluten-Free pizza and it's great to already receive such positive feed back. We want you to enjoy yourself to the fullest (literally!) each and every time you come in to Mellow Mushroom. We understand that it can be very difficult for someone with Celiac Disease to sit down at a restaurant and eat a pizza with confidence, it is a pleasure, a priority, and a great compliment for us. Thank you so much for taking the time to e-mail us and please let me know the next time you come in to dine at Mellow Mushroom! 

Another nugget of interest: our server told us that it had taken Mellow Mushroom longer than expected to offer gluten-free pizza because the first few recipes they came up with tasted like cardboard and did not hold up to their standards. I'm glad they took their time!


Mellow Mushroom currently has stores in the following states:


Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.