Mellow Mushroom opens in Ballantyne

Within five hours Dec. 13, Marc Kieffer received about 200 calls on his cell phone.

Everyone had the same question: Is Mellow Mushroom open?

Kieffer owns the one-year-old Mellow Mushroom in Myers Park and opened a new restaurant in Ballantyne Village this week. The opening was delayed while waiting for city officials to sign off on the restaurant's liquor license, Kieffer said.

During the wait, Kieffer frequently talked to customers who stopped by hoping the restaurant was open.

"People really like Mellow Mushroom," he said. He knows of customers at his Myers Park restaurant who drive 45 minutes weekly to eat there.

This is not Mellow Mushroom's first appearance in Charlotte. The Atlanta-based chain, known for good pizza and funky décor, had several locations around Charlotte in the early and mid 2000s.

Franchisee Tom Lockhart stopped operating the last one as Mellow Mushroom in 2007 amid accusations of using substandard cheese and operating problems.

Kieffer, who grew up in Atlanta, said he and a friend started talking about bringing Mellow Mushroom back to Charlotte after he lost his job as a printing press salesman.

Kieffer and his wife LeAnne recently adopted a daughter from Kazakhstan, and he had spent five months looking for a job with no luck.

"I knew people would be excited to have Mellow Mushroom back," he said.

LeAnn Kieffer, who is an interior designer, and architect firm Tobin Starr created a Middle Eastern themed restaurant inspired by Steppenwolf's song "Magic Carpet Ride."

The décor includes magic carpets on the ceiling, a 20-foot glass tower behind the bar that fills with smoke and lights, murals of genies and belly dancers and a 16-foot mushroom with booths underneath.

Kieffer said representatives from Mellow Mushroom's corporate

office told him the Ballantyne restaurant "raised the bar" for Mellow Mushrooms.

And he's not stopping in Ballantyne.

Kieffer plans to open at least two more stores, probably in the Lake Norman and Concord areas. He's eying a fifth as well, possibly in Steele Creek or uptown.

Details: www.mellowmushroom.com/ballantyne.

Recently open

Massage Envy Spa opened in Rock Hill this week, making it the 13th Massage Envy in the Charlotte area and the first in Rock Hill.

The spa offers affordable facials and a host of therapeutic massage styles, including Swedish, deep tissue, sports, cranial sacral, hot stone and prenatal.

The new location is in Crown Pointe Plaza off Dale Lyle Boulevard in Rock Hill, and it is open seven days a week. To make an appointment, call 803-412-3313.