The Melting Pot

07/05/2008 Posted by mlc33

Not surprised that this place was started in dumpy Tampa Bay, FL., I mean that place as a whole is awful which reflects itself in this terrible chain restaurant. The staff were all new hires and tried to make the best of it but you could tell that they were told what to say, for example, our server kept making recommendations about how much he loved certain selections while his manager let us know is was the server's first night. I heard later on from another server at the next table over give the exact same ridiculous speech to their customers with the exact same "favorite" recommendations. This has corporate franchise written all over it, much worse than others. It was so blatent that I found it entertaining, they are seriously drinking the franchise restaurant kool-aid garbage at this place. The cheese, no joke, looked like shredded velveeta. The look of the shredded cheese can only come from a plastic bag as fresh cheese will stick together. The bring it to the table to put in a hot, steaming bowl to melt with a splash of beer and a couple of other ingredients with some apples and bread. I could of done better at my house with some easy-cheese and a piece of wonder bread. The salad was awful, it was filled with roasted nuts that you would find on a street corner being sold in a bag for a dollar...anyone who has visited manhattan or boston know what I'm talking about. The actual dinner was cooked in a bowl of broth, so your meats and fish were all cooked together and tasted alike as well. It was NOT NOT NOT good, at all. For the amount of money they charged me it made me really feel like I was some idiot, which maybe I was for accepting and paying the bill. Dessert was comprised of a pretty awful mix of extremely cheap melted white chocolate and caramels. Your dipping items were rice krispie treats!! haha, garbage! and marshmallows!! A complete joke! Needlees to say, complete garbage, a complete ripoff and you have to cook your own food! Don't go!

05/11/2008 Posted by bostongals

So it was my birthday and we booked a table for 2 for 4.30. They told us that we will need to empty the table by 6.30 so "please come by 4.15", which we did. We reached at 4.15 and they told us that our reservation was at 4.30 and that is when they will seat us. So why did they tell us to come early??? We were seated and saw the menu that said "fixed Mother's Day menu". We had no idea, the lady on the phone (whom we spoke to several times) never mentioned once that it was a fixed menu. We told our server this and asked if they can make an exception because we were unaware of this, and she said she will ask the manager. This person comes by (who apparently was the manager) and said she cannot make an exception because she wouldn't know how to ring us, if we only wanted to eat 2 cheese fondues (what we always order here). We requested several times and also said that the reason we came here is to celebrate my birthday and we weren't told about the fixed menu. Same experience as the person who wrote another review -- She didn't even bother to wish me! She said she will have to take up this issue with the girl (who booked our table but failed to make us aware of the fixed menu) but there is nothing she can do for us. One apology, no wishes, no coupons for next time - NOTHING! Inspite of us saying that we were thoroughly dissapointed and they are potentialy losing a regular customer. And this isn't the first time we have had this horrid experience at the Burlington location. Once we ordered Chocolate Fondue in which the waiter said that she will charge for extra dippings -- they never used to charge for extra dippings before so who made this rule????? Then we told her about this and said she might be able to throw in few extra pieces of one of the dippings (like she is feeding a stray cat) -- HOW CHEAP!! OVERALL THE SERVICE HERE IS HORRIBLE AND RUDE AND FOR THE $$$$ THEY CHARGE THIS IS NOT GOOD SERVICE AT ALL.