For the first time since it opened in 2009, the Mellow Mushroom restaurant in the Statesboro Market District will close for about two weeks to undergo a major renovation.
General manager Chandler Brannen said the restaurant facelift will begin Monday and reopen Monday, March 18 – perhaps a day or two sooner if the overhaul finishes faster than expected
“We’re doing new paints, we’re reupholstering all of our booths, we’re getting new floors in both the front of the house and in the kitchen and redoing and reorganizing the bar area,” Brannen said.
While there is a lot of work to accomplish in that time frame, Brannen said extensive planning has gone into the project.
“We are working with several different contractors,” she said. “We have separated each area so each contractor will be focused on a specific area of the renovations and they will be working in multiple areas at the same time.”
Brannen said the general layout of the restaurant will not change drastically. She said the arrangement of the table areas would change, they are updating the to-go area with “hot boxes” to keep food warm and cold storage would be expanded for salad to-go orders.
“We are ‘fancifying’ our to-go pick-up area,” Brannen said.
She said the new paint remain bright, blue, green and pink and add in some purple. The restaurant will get a new statue for the outside seating area and a new pop wall art piece, as well.
“We are all very excited about the renovations and updates, especially the bar area,” she said. “We have such a huge selection of bar inventory that is very popular with our customers. We’re getting a new table top for the entire bar and we’re adding high top community tables in the bar area.”
Brannen has been general manager at Mellow Mushroom for the past two years. She said she started working as a server at the restaurant 10 years ago while she was a student at Georgia Southern University.
The Statesboro Mellow Mushroom is one of five in Georgia owned by Bo Chambliss, who purchased the Statesboro restaurant in 2012. The others are located in Pooler, Macon, Valdosta and St. Simons Island, where Chambliss lives. Chambliss is the son of former Georgia congressman and U.S. senator Saxby Chambliss.
Brannen was general manager at the Pooler restaurant prior to coming back to Statesboro.
And while she didn’t grow up locally, Brannen has some long-time family ties to the area. In fact, her grandfather, the late Joe Brannen, was a Statesboro city council member for 11 years and mayor from 2009-2013.
“We have a great staff and we’re all looking forward to the updates and making our Mellow Mushroom even better for our loyal customers and new customers,” Brannen said. “If the work goes well, we’re actually hoping to reopen Friday, March 16. But March 18 is our hard reopen date.”
