Mellow Mushroom (Chattanooga)

Mellow Mushroom
205 Broad St
Chattanooga, TN
(423) 266-5564


After a long day of walking around the awesome riverfront and across the pedestrian bridge, riding the carousel, and generally checking out everything Chattanooga had to offer, we were starved. "We" being Team Oster, our friend Catherine, and her son, Noah, age 2, who met up with us for the weekend. We needed something relatively fast since it was getting late, and something that everyone would like. I suggested the Mellow Mushroom since pizza is usually a crowd pleaser. (I was also a little nostalgic about eating there since Satchel's first bite of pizza was at the Mellow Mushroom in Nashville when he was nine months old.) Catherine and Noah live in Ramallah, so Noah's not really used to eating pizza, but Catherine figured she could at least procure some pasta on his behalf.

We arrived around 6:30pm and there were several people there, but we had no trouble getting a table. The atmosphere was very laidback and bar-like, but there were plenty of families in attendance. Our very attentive waiter supplied us all with the beverage of our choice within minutes and we quickly decided on what we wanted to eat. Bruschetta and meatballs for Noah (there's no pasta on the menu!), a calzone for Catherine, a pepperoni pizza for Satchel and Jiro, and a Caesar salad & Kosmic Karma pizza for Warren and I to split. I mentioned we were starved, right? My only concern was that our pizza had a pesto sauce rather than a red sauce, my favorite, but the waiter happily agreed to bring me a side of sauce for dipping. Warren was very seriously considering ordering one of their witty t-shirts.


Catherine requested Noah's food ASAP and it came out amazingly fast. The monkeys were totally eyeing the meatballs and Catherine quickly offered them each one. Warren and I got our salad right away too so everyone was quite happy eating and chatting and enjoying each other's company. I hadn't dined with a two-year-old in quite some time and was very impressed by Noah's table manners. The monkeys, after going all day, were worn out enough to sit still, quietly eat, and participate in dinner conversation.

We had so much food on the table already I wondered how we'd fit the pizza, but thanks to the elevated metal racks, we had no problem. The pizza was really, really good. Ours had sundried tomatoes, spinach, feta, pesto and fresh tomatoes. Yum. Even the kids' pepperoni was extra tasty. It should come as no surprise to you that we ate everything and even had a second round of beers. (No one had to drive thanks to Chattanooga's free electric shuttle.) Jiro and Satchel claimed that they were still hungry and wanted more meatballs. Catherine thought Noah could probably eat another one, so I ordered some more.

I should have known better.

The restaurant was quite a bit fuller by then, and our waiter and the kitchen were much busier. Whereas our first order of meatballs came out in about five minutes, the second order took infinitely longer. The kids, who had now had a chance for their food to settle, didn't care about eating at all. They wanted to run around some more. We did a few bathroom runs and then let them play pee- a-boo at the railing adjacent to the table. It was time to leave. I called the waiter over and asked to cancel the order of meatballs, but he said they should be done. "Then box them up," I said, hoping someone would eat them before they went bad. (Our hotel room did not have a fridge or a microwave.) "And please bring the check."

By the time I got the check and the meatballs, Catherine and Warren were running the kids up and down the sidewalk outside. I took a quick look at the check, and it seemed a little high, but I just figured it was because it was for 6 instead of our usual 4. I was pretty happy with the service prior to the last order of meatballs, so I left our waiter a very nice 20% tip.

A few days later, back in Memphis, I took a closer look at the receipt. It already had an 18% gratuity added! No wonder! I was not happy about the waiter not mentioning this when he handed it to me. I didn't think a party of six would warrant an automatic gratuity-usually it's more people that that, right? Our waiter, while good, did not deserve an almost 40% tip! I thought about calling the restaurant, but decided it would be more trouble than it was worth. I learned a lesson the hard way. And a hard working waiter got a little bonus. Worse things have happened.

Oh, and just so you know, a Mellow Mushroom is slated to open in Germantown in 2010. Yep Nashville and Chattanooga get one in the urban center, we get one in the burbs. Oh, Memphis.

Aretha Frankensteins

Aretha Frankensteins
518 Tremont St. (Chattanooga)
(423) 265-7685

My Facebook friends who live in Chattanooga are always talking about a place called Aretha Frankensteins. There was no way I was leaving Chattanooga without eating there. Aretha's is located on the North side of Chattanooga, across the Tennessee River, where all of the hipsters live. It's one of those places that is super local and just can't be duplicated. It's like Brother Juniper's, but dare I say, cooler.

Aretha's serves breakfast, lunch, dinner, espresso, and beer. It's open from 7am to midnight everyday. These facts alone make it awesome in my book. Word on the street is that breakfast is the time to go, so we made plans to go on a Sunday morning. I knew that this would likely be a super busy time, but with such a short visit, it was then or never.

Thanks to Google maps we found it without too much trouble. It's nestled inside a very quirky, Cooper-Youngish neighborhood in an old house. It's pretty small, and it was a bit too cold to sit on the lovely patio, so we kept our fingers crossed as we approached. Turns out it was full, but there were only two people ahead of us in line. A waiter came over and took our name and said it would be about 15 minutes. He pointed to a family at the bar and said they were almost done and we could sit in their seats when they left. I was worried we might miss our pre-booked River Gorge ride on the other side of the river, but the waiter said we'd have time. I took his word for it and tried to relax.

We crouched in the doorway and took in the decor. There were lots of kitschy and spooky things hanging on (and from) the walls. I'm assuming that the spooky things are permanent considering the restaurant's name, but they might have been Halloween related. As we waited, more and more people started showing up. Some ordered coffee and drank it on the porch, others patiently chatted on the patio. I asked for a menu to peruse while we waited. We started planning our orders so we could be in and out.


The family at the bar finished up soon after, and we happily took their spots. The bar was expansive and so were the chairs. They were like big leather armchairs on stilts. Satchel and Jiro were getting a little loud with each other so I sat between them. They didn't like this, but I didn't budge. A cute little woman with a "Chattaboogie" t-shirt took our drink orders (coffee, Diet Coke, 2 waters) and Warren and I finalized the food order. Satchel wanted biscuits and gravy; Jiro wanted a breakfast burrito with eggs, cheese, and sausage; and Warren wanted the Polish omelette with sausage and peppers. I felt like someone should get pancakes, so a slim stack was my order by default. (Had I done a better job of examining the menu, I would have certainly ordered someone the Elephants Gerald which is a Belgian waffle topped with ice cream and pecans.)

To keep the very hungry and increasingly antsy monkeys busy, I let them take pictures with my camera and design various shapes and structures with toothpicks. Satchel and I could also see in the kitchen were a young man was making the biscuits. Above the kitchen door was a melted keyboard, which Warren and I found interesting. A little digging and I discovered that Aretha's burnt down a few years ago and had to be rebuilt, so it is likely a remnant. I also read, but did not actually see, that there is a table that is a working Pac Man game. Too bad we didn't sit there!

Our food came out in a timely fashion and we all dug in. Satchel's biscuits and gravy, despite being a half order, were huge! He ate every bite! Jiro's burrito was huge too, but he only made a dent in it. He was distracted my his large side of breakfast potatoes and his very own biscuit. Warren was too far away for me to get a good look at his breakfast, but he reported that it was tasty. My pancakes, also gigantic, were really, really good. So good, in fact, that I ate them plain. That's right, plain. (The pancake mix is sold in stores, and I can definitely see why.)

Our tab came to $28. We all had full bellies and a ton of leftovers (except Satchel). As we walked out, I couldn't believe how many people were waiting to get in. We definitely lucked out and beat the rush. Had we not been in a hurry to catch the boat, I would have insisted on strolling through the neighborhood. (I saw one house with a fence made of old bicycles!)

For the rest of our visit, Satchel asked at least 50 times if we could go back to Aretha's. I really wished we could.

Sushi Nabe of Kyoto (Chattanooga)

Sushi Nabe of Kyoto
110 River St. (Next to Coolidge Park)
Chattanooga, TN
423-634-0171

By 3:00pm on Day 2 of our Chattanooga trip we (me, Warren, Satchel, 4, and Jiro, 2) were exhausted. Beyond exhausted. And we needed some good food--burgers, pizza, chicken tenders, and burritos simply would not do. We needed Japanese food. As luck would have it, we discovered a cool local place on the Coolidge Park side of the river while driving around. (Jiro had fallen asleep in the car after the Raccoon Mountain Caverns.) Warren pulled in and instructed me to grab a menu.

The door was locked and a sign said they didn’t open for dinner until 5:00pm. Posted next to the door was a menu and an article from a local paper proclaiming the owner of the restaurant winner of a local “Iron Chef” competition. After conforming that they had all of our favorites on the menu plus a wide array of sushi, I went back to the car to report.

We decided to return to the hotel, rest, and then walk/ride the water taxi over in a couple of hours. It was a fine plan in theory. Of course, once we were back in the room Jiro was wide awake and he and Satchel were bouncing off the walls. Even though Warren and I were both in fetal positions on our respective double beds, we rallied and decided to take the kids to the (enormous two building) Aquarium (that takes at least two and a half hours to tour) before dinner.

Once we were done with the Aquarium, the monkeys wanted to play in the water outside the Aquarium for awhile. I was bordering on severely cranky and started taking deep breaths to avoid freaking out. It was almost dusk and the water taxis don’t run after dark. “I don’t think I can deal with either walking over the bridge to eat or walking back in the dark,” I said to Warren.

“Do you want to just go to Sekisui?” he asked.

Even though I could pretty much see Sekisui from where I was standing I whined, “No, I want to go to the cool local place across the river.”

“Then let’s just go get the car,” he said.

That’s my guy!

We arrived at Sushi Nabe of Kyoto around 7pm, ready to pig out. We walked in and politely waited in the bar area for the host(ess). There was another family standing in the waiting area. After a few minutes, a man came over and told the family that he needed to clean a table and it would be about fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to clean a table. Ordinarily that would be a deal breaker for me and I would have high-tailed it out of there. But not today.

The family calmly took a seat in the waiting area, as did Warren and Satchel. I stood there with Jiro and watched as the man started cleaning off a table in a completely empty section with 4 or 5 already clean tables. I looked at the bartender in the hopes of engaging him in a discussion about getting my family a table, but he was busy getting a “to go” order and didn’t acknowledge my presence. I went back to staring at the host. He too acted as though I simply did not exist. It was insane.

I looked around the restaurant for someone else, but only saw one waitress bustling around the back. I went into full death stare mode and Jiro started squirming and yelping. (Warren was busy pretending he didn’t know who I was.) The host motioned to the other family (of 4) and they went to sit down at the table (for 8) that the host cleared. Jiro and I stood there in disbelief as he took their drink orders.

I was pissed. Warren was scared that I was going to make a scene. Satchel looked at me and said, “I’m getting too hungry!”

That was it.

Jiro and I walked over to the drink station and waited for the host/waiter to notice us. Again we were ignored. With tears welling up in my eyes (I cry when I get mad), I said, “Excuse me, but could we please have a table? We’ve been waiting for twenty minutes and my children are hungry.” I was talking like a malnourished woman in the line for food at a refugee camp.

With utter surprise the dude said, “Oh I didn’t see you.”

I’ve been standing in plain sight holding a squirming/yelping monkey giving you the death stare for twenty minutes and you didn’t see me!!

He went over to the bartender who was cleaning dishes and said something to him. Then a few minutes later the bartender came over to seat us. I know he saw us standing there the whole time. “Sorry, we’re short-handed tonight,” he said totally unapologetically.

“Is it going to take a long time to get served too?” I asked not so nicely. (I needed to be prepared.)

“Uh, it shouldn’t,” he said.

“Is there a manager or someone I could talk to?” I asked, not satisfied with his level of concern for me and my family.

“The owner, Mr. Watanabe, is in the kitchen,” he said.

“Well, I need to talk to someone,” I said as he led us towards a booth in the very back corner of the restaurant.

“You are sitting next to Jiro,” I informed Warren as I settled in next to Satchel.

Moments later a very sweet and apologetic waitress (Mrs. Watanabe?) came over to give us our menus. After a quick glance I noted the $4.75 edamame and said, “Can we get two miso soups for the boys with no green onions?” She nodded and sped off towards the kitchen.

Warren and I figured out what we wanted to order and did our best to pretend like everything was okay. There was butcher paper covering the tablecloth, so I took the "sushi ordering pencil" and started drawing lines for Satchel to practice his letters. Warren joined in and drew pictures for Jiro.

The waitress came back with the soup (topped with green onions) and took the rest of our order. I decided to let it go and set about taking out the green onions and replacing them with a couple of ice cubes to cool it off for immediate consumption. Warren followed my lead and prepped Jiro’s. The soup had about three miniscule pieces of tofu in it and hardly any seaweed. I took another deep breath and prepared myself for a disappointing dining experience.

Jiro, who was unphased by our mistreatment, pulled the straw out of his water and inserted it in his soup bowl. I tried to stop him, but it didn’t seem to be doing any harm. Soon Satchel was drinking his soup through his straw and we were all smiling. The waitress came rushing over with more soup and said, “I’m sorry! I forgot about the green onion!”

“It’s okay,” I said. And it was.

Moments later the waitress reappeared with a giant fried sushi roll “compliments of Mr. Watanabe” and placed it on the table. There is nothing I like more than kissing up in the form of free food. It was extremely yummy (although at this point anything would have tasted good) and the monkeys barely let Warren and I have any of it.

When the waitress came back, we had Satchel all primed. When she asked if we liked the roll, Satchel smiled and said, “Oishi.” (I don’t know the proper spelling, but this means “delicious” in Japanese.) The waitress was totally floored and a little excited, I think.

Now that both monkeys had a little food in their stomachs they were getting a bit restless. I engaged Satchel in some chopstick practice in which he picked up the discarded green onions and errant grains of rice and relocated them elsewhere on the table. Warren had Jiro singing “Happy Birthday” for a bit, but he was determined to break free of his highchair and wreak havoc. Warren then instituted some reverse psychology to see if he could keep him contained. “Don’t put your seatbelt on!” he said in a stern voice. “Don’t do it!” he repeated as Jiro giggled and did his best to put it back on. Satchel was totally perplexed by this and required a lengthy explanation which was okay since it kept him occupied until the food came.

Warren ordered the Matsuri bento which had chicken teriyaki, salmon, rice, sweet potato tempura, shrimp tempura, and a California roll. It was plenty for him and the monkeys to share. I got a spicy tuna roll, a Chattanooga roll with fried snapper, and a caterpillar roll. My sushi was good, probably not as good as Sekisui, but good. I was actually a little jealous of Warren’s feast. Jiro ate most of Warren’s California roll and Satchel wolfed down the chicken and salmon.

Our meal ended with the usual chorus of “I need to pee,” and “I need to poop,” while Warren slowly finished his dinner. Once “we broke the seal” and got up to go to the restroom, Jiro flung his sandals off and made a mad dash through the restaurant just to make sure our dining experience ended on a sour note.

I put Warren back in charge of Jiro and the check and begrudgingly locked myself in a one seater restroom with Satchel and his toxic fumes. When we re-emerged I found Warren and Mrs. Watanabe having a pleasant conversation in the foyer. “My mom’s name is Keiko too,” he was saying and she smiled and nodded (and practically bowed) before him.

Mojo Burrito (Chattanooga)

Mojo Burrito
138-B Market Street
Chattanooga, TN

We arrived in downtown Chattanooga after dark on a Friday night. I felt certain that we needed to drive in order to find a good restaurant for dinner, but Warren insisted that we walk. “We didn’t get a downtown hotel so we could drive everywhere!” he said. (He’s not from Memphis, you know.) The last time we wandered around downtown Memphis with the monkeys (Satchel, 4, and Jiro, 2) I was twitchy to say the least. Between the Beale Street crowd and the “Can you give me .80 cents so I can take the bus to West Memphis” crowd, I felt like it was a pretty sketchy place to parade around with my offspring. I didn’t see why Chattanooga would be any different.

We set off with firm instructions to stay close and hold hands. The monkeys loved being out and about and made sure to touch every building and pole possible. For some reason every place we passed didn’t seem right—either it was too busy, too chicken tendery, or not chicken tendery enough. But in general, things seemed very safe and there were hordes of other families with small children milling about. (There were also revelers, but I’d say they were in the minority.)

The boys would have been happy to eat ice cream and play in the fountains by the Aquarium all night, but Warren and I wanted real food. “I think they have a Sekisui here,” Warren said. Sushi sounded good and I thought it might be fun to actually see what the one in Chattanooga was like, but once we peered in the door and saw that it was full of breakable objects and childless people we got cold feet. The monkeys act crazy on a normal day, I couldn’t imagine how crazy they would be after a 6 hour road trip.

I was getting dangerously close to cranky, so we had to make a decision quick. Our options in the immediate vicinity were: Friday’s (no way), a Thai restaurant (I was outvoted), Cheeburger Cheeburger, and Mojo Burrito. Warren was leaning towards a burger, but I preferred to check out a local place rather than a chain. We let Satchel be the tie breaker. “Do you want a hamburger or a taco?” we asked.

“A taco!”

Mojo Burrito it was.

When we walked in we saw a sign that read, “If you want to be served, sit in the bar.” Since the sign was right next to a counter with the usual display of meats, tortillas, and toppings, we correctly assumed that we could order at the counter and seat ourselves. The décor was very vibrant and funky and I liked it right away. There was no line and we quickly ordered a huge burrito to share, a soft taco meal for Satchel and a cheese quesadilla for Jiro. While the guys got everything together, I went to the drink/napkin stand to load up. They had crayons and menus to color, but neither monkey was interested.

I took Jiro for a pre-emptive potty run and ended up in one of the coolest bathrooms I’ve ever seen. (Sorry, I felt dumb taking a picture.) I don’t remember much about it now other than the fact that the counter was covered with tile mosaics.

Back at the table, Satchel was eating chips and cheese dip like they were the most delicious things he’d ever tasted. Warren seemed to be enjoying our burrito. Jiro plopped down and set about eating his quesadilla. I noticed that the motto at Mojo's was, "We Roll 'Em for You." I pointed this out to Warren and we had a good laugh, since we had just checked into room 420 at our hotel.

There was peace and harmony for about 3 bites. Apparently that’s all it took for Jiro to get full. He then set about tossing the rest of his burrito over the wall of our booth and laughing his head off.

When I got up to retrieve his dinner off the floor, he took off and ran straight for the front door. I had to do a full sprint to catch him before get got out. I noticed the people behind the counter giving me disapproving looks and the few people who had wandered in after us joined in. I glared back and screamed in my head You try keeping up with him!

Back at the table, threats ensued and Jiro managed to stay put long enough for me to talk Satchel into eating a few bites of his taco. “It's yucky,” he said.

Warren’s ears perked up and he took a bite. As he chewed, he handed the taco to me and I took a bite. As Warren swallowed, my eyes started to water and I spit my bite into a napkin. “Gross,” I said.

Warren looked at me and said, “It did taste kind of funny.”

Naturally (Jiro and) I got up to return the taco. I walked to the counter and said very pleasantly, “The meat in this taco tastes kind of weird. We all tried it. Can we exchange it for a chicken one?”

The woman behind the counter said, “I have to ask the manager,” and then went back to what she was doing.

“Okay so where is the manager?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

The other guy behind the counter looked over with a deer in the headlights face. I took a deep breath and said, “As you can tell, my children have a very short attention span. I would appreciate it if you would find the manager or just give me my money back.” This was enough to get him moving and a few moments later the manager appeared. He quickly replaced the beef tacos for chicken tacos and was very nice about it. I decided I didn’t have the energy to launch a full scale attack on him about his employees not being empowered to provide good customer service.

Back at the table, Satchel was still experiencing cheese zen and could care less about the new tacos. Jiro had remained calm long enough and set about crawling under the table to plan his next escape to the lounge area. I made Warren chase him and sat there staring at the young people drinking and smoking and getting waited on in the bar area until I heard a yelp and a crash in the lounge area.

"Come on, honey," I said to Satchel. "It's time to go."

Stay tuned for the most dramatic Dining with Monkeys experience I've ever had...