Images: Mellow Mushroom prototype opens along Atlanta Beltline

Josh Green

Mon, 12/02/2024 – 13:13

The remaining Beltline Southside Trail segments might not be finished with construction and open for a while, but when they arrive, they’ll have a built-in pitstop with a familiar name but exclusive food offerings.

Atlanta-based stone-baked pizza purveyors Mellow Mushroom announced today that a unique Grant Park prototype location with frontage on the Beltline corridor has opened.

The latest Mellow Mushroom location (of more than 160 across 16 states) anchors The Boulevard at Grant Park apartment community developed post-pandemic by Charleston-based Middle Street Partners.

Located where Boulevard crosses the Beltline, at the southern rim of Grant Park, the 3,400-square-foot space includes two patios facing the under-construction Southside Trail corridor.

The retail section claimed by Mellow Mushroom as part of the new development’s 300 feet of Southside Trail frontage. Courtesy of Middle Street Partners

Inside the 3,400-square-foot concept developed with The Culinary Edge. Courtesy of Mellow Mushroom

The Grant Park location, created in partnership with The Culinary Edge, represents what Mellow Mushroom calls a “significant evolution” and “fast-fine prototype” for the brand that leans into urban design, guest-friendly tech, and new menu items, including a hand-held category called “panizzis” that will be exclusive to the Beltline location.

Other aspects include hand-painted murals, counter-service ordering, a bar dishing mocktails and cocktails, table-locator devices, back-of-the-house system upgrades, exclusive pizza varieties, and a “curated music program that changes by the time of day and season,” per Mellow Mushroom’s announcement. (Peep the full menu here.)

Courtesy of Mellow Mushroom

Courtesy of Middle Street Partners

The Boulevard development marked the Atlanta debut for Middle Street. Meanwhile, in Midtown, the company’s two-tower Juniper Street high-rise project has fully topped out.

Construction of the Beltline’s Southside Trail on either side of Boulevard (west toward West End, and east toward Ormewood Park) has hit unanticipated snags this year.

According to the Beltline’s most recent construction updates, Southside Trail Segments 2 and 3, which extend from Boulevard almost two miles west to beyond the downtown Connector, have encountered “unexpected relocation of fiber as well as the relocation of storm lines to accommodate the fiber in some areas.” That’s impacting current construction progress, which had set a completion date of early 2026, ahead of FIFA World Cup games that year.

Meanwhile, Southside Trail Segments 4 and 5, which will connect the Mellow Mushroom location with points east around to Ormewood Park, came up against “underground utility challenges” at United Avenue that have bumped back that project’s timeline from finishing in summer 2025 to sometime next fall. That section is 1.2 miles long.

In the meantime, have a closer look at how the Mellow Mushroom Grant Park prototype turned out in the gallery above.

The Boulevard at Grant Park’s location at 1015 Boulevard. Google Maps