The Melting Pot

Generous helpings of well prepared ingredients and friendly staff made for the perfect 30th birthday celebration. We love fondue. And the Melting pot chain delivers a consistently strong experience. We order a variety of meats and vegetables. The portions were fine and there were plenty of options for our vegetarian birthday girl. The drink menu was also creative. The dessert chocolate fondues were tasty. And our server Juana really worked hard to make ours a great experience. Do I love it that they drop some sort of 5% surcharge on an over $300 bill for four?? Nope. But it was not enough to ruin our experience. Fondue tends to be expensive, but seriously. Despite that we would return.

We had so much fun at this place. Cooking at the table was fun and delicious. Jacob was fantastic.

We arrived just before our dinner 7pm reservation. My Wife and I were celebrating our 26th Anniversary. We sat at the bar and had a drink while waiting to be seated. Quaint little bar. We were promptly seated at 7pm. We were surprised to find out that the Bartender would be serving our 4 course meal. He was outstanding considering he was waiting on upstairs diners and the bar. The food was good and the service was the best it could be under the circumstances. Again, he added some touches to our experience that made a difference. Back to paid parking, they tell you to allow 1.5 hours for the meal. Our meal took 2.5 hours. I was hit for an extra $60. We would definitely go again. Parking: Pay lot one block south east. $20 for two hours. $60 fine if you go over. Dinner took almost three hours.

The atmosphere is amazing, the building is over 100 years old, and they give you a semi-history story about it. One thing you might not like is that the bathrooms are a bit complicated to get to (you have to take an elevator), but it's all right. Service and atmosphere was both excellent. My only gripe is that there really isn't enough food (especially the chocolate) for the price paid. We had a party of two, and the amount of chocolate was very underwhelming, maybe an inch (or even less) of chocolate in the pot. The chocolate tasted amazing, but there wasn't enough. At other fondue places, there is usually more chocolate.

A quick review of my worst experience at any of The Melting Pot locations... Last Tuesday, my fiancee and I showed up to the downtown San Diego location at 6:40pm for our 6:45pm reservation to celebrate a birthday. We walked in and checked in with the hostess, who let us know they were working on the table and that it should be ready shortly. The next time we were spoken to was at 7:15, 30 minutes after our reservation was set for. The hostess then apologizes, and walks us to our table upstairs. At this point we are a little irritated with the wait, but hey that happens. We were just focused on the delicious food that was to come. Sadly that did not happen on this trip. We sit down and have to wait about 10-15 minutes for our server to come introduce himself. He was very nice and again apologized for the delay. We then ordered two cocktails and let our waiter know what courses we wanted when it came to the cheese, salad, meat, and chocolate. After placing the initial order, it took about another 25-35 minutes to receive the first round of food. This trend continued for almost all of the courses and when trying to get another drink we ran into a headache just trying to get someone's attention. When the cheese came out for the bread, vegetables, and fruit, it was nearly room temperature and seemed like it had been sitting in the back for some time before being brought out. By the time we were wrapping up the meat portion of the night it was nearly 9:15 pm! It took almost 2 1/2 hours from the time we showed up, until the time we finished what we thought was going to be the second to last course of the evening. However, because it was now so late and the restaurant was now closed, we didn't feel comfortable making the waiter or anyone else stay any later for our chocolate course. Which is, if we're honest, mainly the reason we come to The Melting Pot! We were very disappointed with our experience overall, and if the service had just been faster, than the food would've been more appetizing (warm) and we would've felt comfortable ordering our last and favorite course! I know things happen and certain nights can just be rough and i am not sure if they were understaffed as i do think our waiter himself was trying his best. But my Fiancee and I have been going to the Colorado locations for over a decade and every time it is absolutely superb. This last trip at the San Diego location fell way short of our expectations and past experiences and we are not sure if we would return at this point. Which is very disappointing as we just moved down the street!

My wife and I had been wanting to go here for a long time and finally got around to it, doing their "Thursdate" dinner package to get a full experience. Though this was severely hampered because of how late we got there (I think reservations were for like, 8?). The quality of the food was good, and the service was nice, though sparse, and it was an interesting experience. Though cooking your own food in the pot is a lot more challenging than the BBQ where you fry your own meat. The main issue with having a late reservation, which I didn't realize until after it started, was that the night clubs all start to open up while you are still working on your meal. Booming base from nearby clubs could easily be felt from our booth and it was really annoying. Then after we were done, it took forever for an Uber/Lyft to get to us because of all the one-way roads with closures around the area, so we kept getting drivers who canceled after getting nearby and then getting lost. We hesitate to go here again, but may do so in the future if it's an earlier reservation (5-6pm?).