Mellowing out with the kids
More about my first full day back in Chickamauga, Georgia. Here's another weirdness report:
Mellow Mushroom, a pizza franchise with 45 locations in five states, recently opened a restaurant in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. I remember Mellow Mushroom from when I was a student at the University of Georgia in Athens. Back then (early Nineties), the franchise only had a few locations: the one in Athens and however many else in Atlanta. The restaurants were known for their gratuitously cheesy pizza, a wide selection of beer, and a dippy-hippy/psychedelic theme featuring all sorts of wink-wink nudge-nudgery to tripping and to smoking pot. For example, their logo was (and still is) a little laid back cartoon mushroom dude on a tie-dyed background.
Fine. Whatever. Brilliant idea for a college town like Athens and, presumably, for their first few locations in Atlanta. So what? Well, what's interesting to me is that my dear old mom has been raving to me on the phone about Mellow Mushroom since it opened. Not that she's been, she's just been hearing a lot about it at the baptist church.
Mom, who just turned seventy, lives in Chickamauga, Georgia - a small town about 20 minutes drive from Chattanooga. Hardly ever going out, her main contact to culture these days is her church where, apparently, the opening of Mellow Mushroom has been all the buzz. In fact, for the pastor's birthday, the congregation gave him a gift certificate to Mellow Mushroom. Mellow Mushroom's appeal to these folks is beyond me. Most of the people at the church don't drink or smoke dope or eat magic mushrooms, and there are plenty of other pizza places between Chickamauga and downtown Chattanooga.
Anyway, Mom mentioned Mellow Mushroom again last night, and I took her there for dinner (in an effort to get it out of the way early so I could focus the rest of my time on down home cooking and BBQ). We ordered a large pie with onions, which was adequate, but having lived in New York and New Jersey, my high pizza standard was not met. Mellow Mushroom's interior exuded the hippy-dippiness I remembered from the nineties and had a fairly impression selection of beer. However, the dining area was packed with families, whom I suspect listen to country radio, regularly attend church, and don't drink or take psychedelics at all. I'm guessing that these parents wouldn't want their children exposed to drug culture, but roughly half the people in the restaurant were between the ages of six and ten. I only saw two people (a couple of businessmen at the bar) drinking beer. I imagine that, come Friday and Saturday night, a different crowd hangs at Mellow Mushroom, but it just seemed so odd to see family time happening in this setting. Were the patrons oblivious to the drug culture overtones?
I should mention that Mellow Mushroom is in close proximity to the local aquarium and other all-ages tourist attractions. Still, there are plenty of dining options nearby. Maybe I'm being a prude by making such a big deal about Mellow Mushroom's clientele ... and, believe me, I'm all for a mellower baptist church. It's just that what I viewed last night just seemed so incongruous to me.
Mellow Mushroom, a pizza franchise with 45 locations in five states, recently opened a restaurant in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. I remember Mellow Mushroom from when I was a student at the University of Georgia in Athens. Back then (early Nineties), the franchise only had a few locations: the one in Athens and however many else in Atlanta. The restaurants were known for their gratuitously cheesy pizza, a wide selection of beer, and a dippy-hippy/psychedelic theme featuring all sorts of wink-wink nudge-nudgery to tripping and to smoking pot. For example, their logo was (and still is) a little laid back cartoon mushroom dude on a tie-dyed background.
Fine. Whatever. Brilliant idea for a college town like Athens and, presumably, for their first few locations in Atlanta. So what? Well, what's interesting to me is that my dear old mom has been raving to me on the phone about Mellow Mushroom since it opened. Not that she's been, she's just been hearing a lot about it at the baptist church.
Mom, who just turned seventy, lives in Chickamauga, Georgia - a small town about 20 minutes drive from Chattanooga. Hardly ever going out, her main contact to culture these days is her church where, apparently, the opening of Mellow Mushroom has been all the buzz. In fact, for the pastor's birthday, the congregation gave him a gift certificate to Mellow Mushroom. Mellow Mushroom's appeal to these folks is beyond me. Most of the people at the church don't drink or smoke dope or eat magic mushrooms, and there are plenty of other pizza places between Chickamauga and downtown Chattanooga.
Anyway, Mom mentioned Mellow Mushroom again last night, and I took her there for dinner (in an effort to get it out of the way early so I could focus the rest of my time on down home cooking and BBQ). We ordered a large pie with onions, which was adequate, but having lived in New York and New Jersey, my high pizza standard was not met. Mellow Mushroom's interior exuded the hippy-dippiness I remembered from the nineties and had a fairly impression selection of beer. However, the dining area was packed with families, whom I suspect listen to country radio, regularly attend church, and don't drink or take psychedelics at all. I'm guessing that these parents wouldn't want their children exposed to drug culture, but roughly half the people in the restaurant were between the ages of six and ten. I only saw two people (a couple of businessmen at the bar) drinking beer. I imagine that, come Friday and Saturday night, a different crowd hangs at Mellow Mushroom, but it just seemed so odd to see family time happening in this setting. Were the patrons oblivious to the drug culture overtones?
I should mention that Mellow Mushroom is in close proximity to the local aquarium and other all-ages tourist attractions. Still, there are plenty of dining options nearby. Maybe I'm being a prude by making such a big deal about Mellow Mushroom's clientele ... and, believe me, I'm all for a mellower baptist church. It's just that what I viewed last night just seemed so incongruous to me.
2 comments:
I knew there was a Mellow Mushroom in Chattanooga - in fact, my sister worked as one of their managers when it first opened - but that's weirding me out that it's a topic of discussion in Chickamauga. I mean, this is a town with more churches than businesses! And I can remember somebody coming to high school drunk once, but I can't even remember anybody ever *talking* about drugs at our high school!! Do you think most of the kids we went to high school with would have even *recognized* a bong?!?
"Do you think most of the kids we went to high school with would have even *recognized* a bong?!?"
Well, perhaps not most but certainly many would have recognized the novelty device in question.
I reckon you were too busy gittin' that scholarship to Duke to notice some of the school's more colorful extracurricular activities.
Post a Comment