By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS
In 2014, The VRG printed an article on vegan menu objects on the restaurant chain Mellow Mushroom. At the moment, they provided a pita bread with hummus. We had been knowledgeable that the pita bread contained L-cysteine, a dough conditioner sometimes derived from human hair or duck feathers though a microbially-derived kind is commercially out there however extra pricey.
We wished to know whether or not Mellow Mushroom nonetheless served this pita bread. In March 2025, Katie Anderson, the Provide Chain Supervisor at Mellow Mushroom, instructed us by cellphone that they now not have pita bread on their menu. Additional, in line with Anderson, L-cysteine is not an ingredient of their pizza doughs.
Once we requested whether or not L-cysteine is in any menu element, such because the buns and rolls, she wrote in a followup electronic mail:
“We’re not required to reveal [this] data [on our website] …” Nevertheless, Anderson acknowledged that she is going to request “a full evaluation” from their third-party vitamin firm and share the outcomes with The VRG at a later time.
Vegan Menu at Mellow Mushroom
Throughout a follow-up cellphone name with Anderson in September 2025, The VRG discovered particulars—acknowledged in parentheses beneath—about this chain’s vegan menu choices listed on a devoted web page on Mellow’s web site. These things are famous by a vegan icon on the web site menu solely. Anderson added by electronic mail that “…[in-store] printed menus have a lacto-ovo vegetarian icon subsequent to these choose objects.”
- Vegan Avocado Hoagie (sugar current)
- Vegan Cheese Pizza (mozzarella out there)
- Enlightened Spinach Salad (ordered with out the dressing and sugar-glazed pecans; choose the balsamic French dressing or olive oil and vinegar)
- Vegan Greek Salad (ordered with out the dressing; choose the balsamic French dressing or olive oil and vinegar)
- Vegan Tempeh Hoagie (sugar current)
- Vegan Veg Out Pizza (mozzarella out there)
- Vegan Construct Your Personal Pizza (mozzarella out there)
Vegan friends at Mellow Mushroom ought to remind workers upon ordering a vegan pizza that garlic butter and Parmesan cheese NOT be brushed on the dough though the usual kitchen protocol is to go away them off vegan pizzas.
The VRG requested Anderson if friends might request vegan mozzarella rather than dairy mozzarella on all dishes when eating at Mellow Mushroom. She cautioned in her electronic mail response:
“Relating to swapping our common mozzarella with the vegan mozzarella, this shouldn’t be a problem to request relying on the placement/operator. HOWEVER, it is very important observe that merely substituting the mozzarella doesn’t mechanically make it a ‘vegan choice.’ Solely the objects recognized as vegan by our third celebration vitamin firm (as I shared with you over the cellphone) are vegan.”
The menu choices within the bulleted checklist above are vegan.
Readers ought to observe that Anderson was unable to confirm right now whether or not the sugar current within the menu objects listed above—together with the pizza sauce, pizza dough, and hoagie rolls – had been processed via cow bone char, a way used to whiten some non-USDA licensed natural cane sugar. (By the way, beet sugar is rarely processed via bone char.) Nevertheless, Anderson knowledgeable The VRG that she “…will work on reviewing and acquiring the solutions from our provider, ingredient deck. or from our third-party vitamin firm” and relay this data to us.
The vegan web page on the Mellow web site additionally lists pretzels. We don’t embody them right here as a result of “…pretzels are being phased out and we are going to solely have the pretzel bites as a menu choice…the pretzels/pretzel bites are made with the identical dough used to make pizzas.”
Diet Portal on Mellow Mushroom Web site
The Mellow Mushroom web site accommodates a vitamin web page with three features:
- Diet calculator
- Interactive vitamin menu
- Allergen menu
Sadly, though friends might decide some details about the menu choices, none of those pages gives full ingredient details about them.
Nevertheless, we additionally found some issues by utilizing the vitamin calculator that was not evident on the menu web page itself. As an example, a patron might order tempeh on a pizza.
Oddly, in line with the calculator, additionally it is potential so as to add “vegan feta cheese” to a pizza, however NOT to a Greek or spinach salad.
So, we requested Anderson if a visitor wished vegan feta and/or mozzarella cheese on both salad, might they order it? She replied:
“…The vegan feta crumbles had been a part of a restricted time supply and will have been faraway from the web site. Thanks for catching this. I don’t see a problem with including the vegan mozzarella to a salad upon request, however it’s as much as the placement.”
Anderson knowledgeable us that when the feta crumbles had been provided, they had been the Observe Your Coronary heart model.
Observe Your Coronary heart Vegan Cheese at Mellow Mushroom
Anderson instructed The VRG in September 2025 that they’d been utilizing vegan mozzarella and feta cheeses from Observe Your Coronary heart (FYH) for the previous eight years. In line with the FYH web site, the substances for his or her dairy-free mozzarella are:
“Filtered Water, Natural Coconut Oil, Potato and Corn Starch, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Sea Salt, Lower than 2% of: Pure Flavors, Potato Protein, Calcium Phosphate, Natural Vegan Cane Sugar, Natural Vegetable Glycerin, Cellulose, Sodium Citrate, Citric Acid, Lactic Acid, Sodium Bicarbonate, Beta Carotene for Shade.”
Readers might discover that USDA Natural cane sugar—which is rarely filtered by way of cow bone char—is used within the FYH cheese.
Anderson additionally knowledgeable The VRG by electronic mail in August 2025 that they “finalized our new grated Parmesan cheese, and I’m pleased to cross alongside it’s animal-rennet free.” In a follow-up electronic mail, she specified that the Parmesan cheese is cow’s milk-based.
Thanks to Mellow Mushroom for all their help to customers.
The contents of this posting, our web site and our different publications, together with Vegan Journal, are usually not meant to offer private medical recommendation. Medical recommendation needs to be obtained from a certified well being skilled. We regularly depend upon product and ingredient data from firm statements. It’s unattainable to be 100% positive a few assertion, data can change, folks have completely different views, and errors may be made. Please use your finest judgment about whether or not a product is appropriate for you. To make certain, do additional analysis or affirmation by yourself.
For data on different chains, see https://www.vrg.org/fastfoodinfo.php
For data on veg eating places, see https://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php
