The Melting Pot-Seattle

IMPORTANT NOTE: Under new, customer-oriented management! I come here a few times a year because I have subscriptions to both the opera and ballet which are a few blocks away. My friends and I start the night off with their meat fondue and after the performance come back after for late-night chocolate fondue happy hour (which has since been nixed by corporate, apparently). The majority of my visits have been great; a good time with friends, good food and OK service. I recently wrote a review about a negative experience I had at the Seattle Melting Pot location, where my boyfriend and I came at 5:15 on a Thursday and were refused to be seated in a nearly empty restaurant. The new General Manager (started in January) contacted me persistently with sincere apologies for my experience, worked hard to resolve the issue and assured me my business is valued. I was also contacted by two other Melting Pot corporate staff who wanted to make sure I was taken care of. I have to say that I am truly impressed by the level of customer service I received after my negative incident, and the Seattle GM ensured that he is working hard to make customer service and experience top priority. With all that said, despite my negative experience (and despite the elimination of the late-night chocolate fondue happy hour), the response from the Melting Pot crew truly impressed me in their exemplary customer service and will indeed give them another go before the next ballet I attend. more

My wife and I thought it would be a great place to spend a evening with each other. We heard it had decent food, well to say the least we both were very very unhappy with everything. The service was unreal, (Slow), and the food was very poor, (I would have rather had a cheeseburger from wendys). Then to top it off the bill came and it was over $100.00. For horrible food horrible service, I would recomend Mcdonalds over this place... Pros: The best thing about the place was the water Cons: Everything more

People who like MP maybe the people who have never been to a good fondue restaurant before. The quality of the cheese and meat is very sub-par. People who liked it may have not tasted A-grade meat/cheese or just couldn't tell the difference. The restaurant probably feels justified to charge the high price because of the ambiance and the unique experience. Well most non-generic reviews here would give this restaurant 5 stars mostly for the experience and the ambiance. But the food...sad to say, unimpressive. Service wise, it really depends on who you get, some waiters are competent and some aren't. I have gotten each of these two types on my 4 visits. Special events - yes go if you don't care about the food quality and just care about the experience. Then again if you have actually been to a nice fondue place/event, the MP is not that big of an experience. Pros: Ambiance Cons: Quality of food, service more

I signed up just to write this review. I checked out the reviews for this place the other day, just before I was headed there. I thought the way the reviews were either glowing or hateful was interesting. Well, unfortunately, you can put me in the unhappy camp. The food, while good, was overpriced. But, ok, you are paying for an experience so I'll let that slide. But the service... awful. Dinner for 2 took almost 2.5 hours. The delay between a drink order and then seeing our server again was 30 minutes! And that was typical for the whole meal. This was the Seattle location, by the way. I heard the Tacoma one is better. Pros: Food is good Cons: Overpriced and poor service more

I have been coming to the MeltingPot in Seattle for a few years now. My husband and I got engaged there three years ago and we treat ourselves here every six months or so. The atmosphere is nice and private, the food is pretty good, and the service is usually on par. Lately though, it seems like the server (s) we have had in the past keep disappearing from there. We generally request a specific server who we have had in the past who we like and get put into his ""area"". At seems like these servers we used to request are never there anymore for certain reasons and we are given new servers. The only problem is, that the last two times we have gone we have been given two servers that weren't really all that great. They were okay, but when my husband and I dine there, we are looking for an experience. The server should play into that roll. We used to love Candace as our server, she was really on top of her game, gave great suggestions, and was really friendly. We always asked for her and she was our server for quite sometime. One day, we came and in the hostess told us she no longer worked there. We were seated with another server who we took a real liking to. Once again, the Meltingpot is about the experience and service is important here considering there is a big interaction with your server. So we came back three times and had the same server and things were great there. He was on top of his game, always knew the perfect wine to go with our meal, had a lot of charm, and always made us laugh. We called in for our anniversary two weeks ago and was told he wasn't there anymore. We came in for our anniversary and the service was horrible. We asked what happened to our server (Giancarlo) and our server told us he was let go. That made no sense to me at all! Well anyway, our anniversary didn't go so well. Our server had no idea what she was doing and had no knowledge of wine pairings. How can this happen at a nice restaurant where service is key? more

I heard of this place from friends who say ""Don't waste your time and money"". It cost them $400 dollars + 4 hours of time to eat in this sauna of a restaurant. They said that the boiling broth on their table was like having a facial while eating. ""Gross""-Of course I was reluctant to try it out considering I do not understand the appeal of eating ""boiled raw meat"" in the first place- but even if I could wrap my head around that sounding appetizing, I was really confuse how a restaurant that requires you to cook your OWN food can justify charging $400 to feed 5 people who all said to me that they were still hungry when they left this place!!! ... I had appetizers and dessert here myself in hopes of giving this restaurant a chance. In the first 30 minutes I saw a couple sit down in the bar, look at the ridiculous prices of $16 for a bowl of cheese, and leave the restaurant. We ordered 2 Cheese appetizers and dessert...I must say, I was extremely disappointed to find that the bread was stale enough to break in half when I pricked it with my dipping fork, and the vegitables were even worse considering some pieces were too small to be picked up with the fork and the edges were shriveled and dried, not to mention the taste was not good. The cheddar cheese tasted decent as long as you like garlic flavored cheese that no longer resembles cheddar. The Nacho cheese was better because I happen to like processed Nacho cheese, which is what this tasted like. The service was good- Not great, but I couldn't complain about that after the lack of food quality. Then dessert- YAY! Chocolate/Peanut butter dip was good! I felt okay spending the ""Happy Hour"" price for this which was $8.00. However would NEVER spend the real price of $16 (Was not that Good!!) They sure know how to make money here! Serve minimal food, make you cook it yourself, and charge as much as gold for it! Don't waste your time and Money, they should be ashamed with the food quality verses their prices! Ridiculous!! Pros: They have Valet. more

I'm just not that much of a fondue person. My favorite part was salad and the entree (mix of chicken,... more

I'm just not that much of a fondue person. My favorite part was salad and the entree (mix of chicken, shrimp and beef). Cheese one was okay. Desert... more

We took my mother and dad for Mother's Day and had a really bad experience. We arrived on time for our 4:00 pm reservation and we were seated on time. There were 9 in our party and the table was meant for 8 (or 6). One person was never able to reach the fondue burner. The server was so busy he flew by with menus and was very abrupt. When we finally got his attention, he mumbled a response and then took off again. He did not ever figure out our correct order and we just finally gave up. The menu had only three high priced entrees choices and it took us forever to get our food. The food was good but not anything worth the poor service. \r \r We were ther more than THREE hours. Boiling broth was left on our table for 35 minutes while we waited for the main course. It felt like we were in a sauna. Dessert took 25 minutes to arrive. We kept asking if the air conditioning could be turned up but to no avail. We were thrilled to get out of there. I did complain to the manager and she took some off our bill. But we will not be trying this restaraunt again. Too bad because other fondue places we have tried, we have loved! There are several in Vancouver BC which are wonderful. Pros: Could be a great romantic spot is service improved Cons: service was terrible, hot and stuffy inside more

I'm not sure what these people are talking about when they say this place is bad. I thought it was such a cool, interactive experience that was worth the price. The food was delicious and the service was great! For those of you that thought the food was bland, you can blame yourselves, you cooked it! Choose a more flavorful option then! Definately a great restaurant all around! I love Fondue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pros: Everything, especially the dessert Cons: Not good on a time crunch more

This restaurant is set up for romance, with each table sectioned out from each other, you can barely tell... more

This restaurant is set up for romance, with each table sectioned out from each other, you can barely tell anyone else is around you. Though the men... more

I had made reservations for our group 5 weeks in advance for a birthday party. They made me sign a standard contract, saying that if we were there past 15 minutes late then they would give away our table and charge us still. They were almost an hour late seating us. They didn't make any accomodations for our group while waiting. When I brought this up to the manager's attention he said ""What do you want me to do about this?"" \r The food is sub par, over priced and not worth it. The service is horrible and slow. The managment needs to take a couple classes in managing a restaurant. \r There are so many other restaurants in Seattle that are so much better. I will never again set food in this horrible place. Cons: rude staff, rude management, bad food that's over priced more

Here's the deal....take a bowl fill with some Ramen noodle flavor packets and throw in some raw meats, vegtables and bring to a roaring boil. Ooooh YUMMO! Wow, what Mc Culture can do for you. If you believe you've found a real gem all the power to you. \r Perhaps, we need to think about what a restaurant is considered to be now days. This is not a restaurant...no...no.........please don't let curiosity lead you to disapointment, nausea, and utter disgust. Pros: zero Cons: super overpriced, nightmare place all around more

It is ironic that City Search wants me to be fair and not compare this place to a neighborhood taco stand. The whole night was a joke. So I won't compare. I'll just go to the taco stand instead. Our time there was spent wondering why people settle for less. Plus take pride in spending lot on garbage. It would be different if there was some sort of dignity and quality in other words something worth the money. It's so embarassing to think people think that the place is good and even recomend it to others. I wouldn't recommend licking the sidewalk. Maybe some would. But really stay far far away from this ""cheezy"" place. Cons: horrible bland food, cheap imitation, rip off, a joke more

I've never had a problem getting a table here, even though most people rant about that. I've always come with 3+ people and that's the deal (fondues are about $10/ea and feed 2 healthy grown women). Chocolate and cheese fondues are awesome. I would recommend not coming on the weekdays as the time I went it was date-city, a bit uncomfortable when you're there with girlfriends. more

First of all, I was so impressed with the wine selection. They have an extensive list of wine, and wines that are $75 under are half off on Wednesdays, which happened to be the day we went there. We ordered the ""Big Night Out."" The food is ok, but there is nothing amazing about it. It's nothing you couldn't do at home only if you had fondue gadgets. But, we were absolutely stuffed!!! The service was great. For a couple looking for some intimate dining experience, I would recommend asking for one of the L-shape seats when they make reservation. I don't think I wanna go back some time soon because the food is not impressive, which is fine, I wasn't expecting amazing food. It was a fun experience nonetheless. Pros: The wine selection and service more

Take your loved one here for a delicious dinner at a relaxed pace. You will have 4 courses including cheese... more

Take your loved one here for a delicious dinner at a relaxed pace. You will have 4 courses including cheese fondue, salad, meat and veggies, and d... more

We ate recently at the Melting Pot and were very disappointed. It is expensive and the food used is shockingly poor quality and did not seem fresh. It is surprising this place stays in business considering how good so many other restaurants are. Pros: dark Cons: Gross, stale, overpriced more