The Mellow in Middletown (directly across Blankenbaker from SE Christian) opened yesterday, and we decided to try it for lunch. This will be a quick, more superficial review, as it had been open fewer than 24 hours, and really any review is unfair (but yes, I'm shouldering on).
We got there at 1:15, and - with a 40% full restaurant - there were around twice as many service staff as customers! Given that, some confusion in seating was to be expected, but after a minute or two we were led to the booth we had seen vacant and had requested.
We ordered hot pretzels (garlic butter with red dipping sauce) and Hummus (what can I tell you - we weren't in a pizza kind of mood, also unfair to the restaurant). Although appetizers, they took a LONG time to arrive; be forwarned that the pretzels are made from scratch. The pretzels were worth every minute of wait, arriving so hot we couldn't eat them right away. The butter and mild garlic flavors were there, and it was outstanding (tho possibly too much bread if one were also ordering pizzas). The Hummus itself was solid (little oil), and seemed skimpy when compared to the quantity of fresh pita bread that accompanied it.
We also got two "half order" sub sandwiches, a mushroom/cheese/artichoke on French bread and a mushroom/meats/bacon/cheese on wheat. Both breads were very nice (although it appeared that they are not made on site), and the sandwiches seemed more like what I'd call a full-size than half size. The mush/cheese/artichoke was a tad skimpy in ingredients, while my sandwich seemed overstuffed. Both were tasty! They came with a bag of chips, which appeared at first glance to be small-batch botique potato chips, but upon examination came with a notice that for questions visit the fritolay.com web site for information!
The waiter gave me my sub with the words "and here's the Italian," and left the table. I had to call him back, as that was not what I had ordered. We could see the kitchen from our table, and could see him go through all receipts to find our table's order, and the cook, the waiter, and several other team members were gathered around my sandwich examining it. Eventually he came back, and stated that in fact this was what I had ordered, but he had never seen this sandwicfh before, and thought it was something else. Oh, well - if you don't want this, don't go the first day!
They had 32 beers on the draft menu, 13 of which were "local" (including faminilar names from Bloomington, New Albany, Louisville, and Lexintgton).
All in all, we would go back, but would save our visit for a time when we wanted to try the pizza. Note that as things settle down the overall experience may prove very different (could be better or worse, don't know), but as a newly opened place it went pretty well.
The place is nice looking...but somehow misses out on the comfortable ambiance of the other three locations I've tried (Boone, Asheville and Chattanooga) There are a couple of huge "Louisville" murals (Churchill, Derby, Thunder, etc) which are kinda cool...then there are a these two awkward looking mirrored hangy things over the bar...They are -supposed- to be upside down renditions of the spires at Churchill but they come off looking like 5 foot tall disco balls.