The Melting Pot

I love to go the other Melting Pot locations, like the one in Long Island. This is the first time I tried the Somerville location, and was very disappointed with the service, there were very few other tables occupied and the service was extremely slow. The fondue is always good, but for the amount I spend I deserved much better service. I will not be returning to the Somerville location again.

The Service was over the top!
We had made reservations to try the «new summer menu» THEY DIDN’T HAVE IT.

It’s a fun night out, and the food is tasty. My kids (teenagers) love it. We always leave feeling full, sometimes too full. I’ve never had a bad experience here, and I’ve used several email promotions over the years.
Yes, it is pricey, so we don’t go here every week. It is a treat once or twice a year.
The servers have all been friendly and accommodating. If you run out of dippers, you get can get more at no charge.
The only thing I wish is that it was open for lunch. It is only open for lunch on Sundays.

Started off on the wrong foot and continued for the next 3 HOURS! When we arrived after making a reservation for 8 people, we were told there was not a table available, even though they confirmed the reservation earlier. They said we could wait, but no guarantees. WHAT??? In the meantime, the manager was lecturing the hostess about something else. Finally, I came up with my own solution, which really was still horrible. I’ll admit, I knew nothing about the concept, and I’m not a fan. Regardless, the table we sat at was greasy, the menu’s dirty and warped, and the burners used to cook our own food would not get to a boil. I honestly do not understand how people have not gotten food poisoning here. Maybe they have??? I felt bad for our waitress who was clearly overwhelmed and doing her best but was pretty much missing in action most of the night. The quality of the meat/​fish was not good. Tuna was fishy. Gross. BTW, our bill for 7 people was nearly $ 400. I think if you did just cheese and dessert you might survive, but I cannot recommend this restaurant to anyone.

Here for a birthday dinner, but as a family who often does Chinese Hot Pots, and enjoys fondues at the house of our Swiss friends, this place was a low quality, astronomically priced novelty.
Please just make a fondue yourself.
The amount of food you get is laughably small.
— I could easily eat the fondue meant for three.
— items to dip were nothing special.
— $ 8 salad was a small plate of junk iceberg.
— our sodas were watery
— feel like a steak/​fish entrée? You’ll get a lobster tail and three tiny bite sized pieces of beef. We were wondering where the rest of it was.
— …that bill. Over $ 100 for maybe $ 50 worth of food.
The positives were the soft lighting, the uniqueness of the experience and the dessert fondue which was tasty and although skimping on items to dip, might be worth returning for just that.

I was excited to try out The Melting Pot for the first time last night during their Leap Day promotion. The promotion offered a 4-​course meal for $ 29. «$ 29 on the 29^th»
I brought my boyfriend here and although it was a monday night and we had been exhausted from our day at work and university we decided «why not».
As soon as we arrived I looked around and thought the place looked terrible and smelled so bad I had to double check that we had entered the correct spot. We were greeted by a girl standing at the front desk and were told to take a seat. After about 10 minutes we were taken to our table (we had a reservation). This is when things started to piss me off. We watched two other tables get seated after us, and get their drinks and we were just so pissed that our server hadn’t even come to greet us! after about 15 minutes, we were greeted. Between every course our server was nowhere to be found. Our drinks were never refilled and when the check came an extra charge was put in. After waiting over 15 minutes for our server to come to our table so we can ask him about this, my boyfriend decided to get up and look for him (like seriously?). guess where our lovely server was? SITTING AT THE BAR chatting it up with his coworkers.
Our entire stay there was TWO HOURS AND A HALF. On our way home we were so pissed off that I had to write this review today to let other Unilocalers know to avoid this place. I am sure other melting pot locations are great, but this one was TERRIBLE.

Very nice dining experience, it’s a bit pricey but well worth it. Our waiter Ryan was extremely attentive and very nice and the food was delicious. We had the four course meal and each course was well spaced and not rushed. Nice ambiance and décor, great cocktails.

Just went here for my birthday and it was awesome. The cheese was amazing, the meat was seasoned very well and the dessert was sensational!

If I could give 0 stars, I would.
I was excited to receive a «Double Date Night» promotion email from the Melting Pot that offered 3 courses for $ ⁸⁰⁄₄ people, much lower than the usual menu prices, and promised drink and dessert specials. I quickly made a reservation for the Somerville, NJ location, which I had never been to (but have been to other Melting Pot locations). To be safe, I decided to call the restaurant to make sure that this specific location was honoring the promotion, and was told by a hostess and manager that they happily would. I was surprised to see that they weren’t familiar with the promotion sent out in the Melting Pot email, but they offered to make a note on my reservation that my party would be participating in this to avoid the relatively awkward task of explaining the deal to a server.
Here’s where the issues began. When we arrived, with a reservation, we were asked to wait 5 – 10 minutes. Typically not a big deal to me, but there were MAYBE 6 tables in the entire restaurant and we counted at least 3 servers, so this was a bit confusing. After waiting close to 10 min (including the hostess asking a waiter walking by if he would take our party, to which, right in front of us, he simply said «no»), we asked if we could just sit at any of the open tables so we could settle in. We explained that even if we needed to wait a few minutes for the server, that would be okay with us. A ridiculous 20 minutes later, a server came over and asked for our drink orders. Since the promotion promised wine/​cocktail specials, we asked if she could give more info about what those were and what our meal choices would be. She clearly had no idea what promotion we were talking about, and went to check with a manager. 10 minutes later, she returned and explained that her manager said that the restaurant was NOT participating in the «Double Date Night» offer. I explained my call the previous day and that my call should have been noted on my reservation. Another visit to her manager and another few minutes pass, and she tells us that they will offer us $ 80/​couple, not $ 80 for the table of 4 as the email promised. I show her the email, and she takes my phone to her manager who returns with it a few minutes later. He asks us a series of questions — are we sure that the offer wasn’t specific to another location? etc. Again, clearly he had no knowledge of this promotion.
At this point, my whole table is far past the point of frustrated. We’ve been in the restaurant for now close to an hour and my party expresses that, at this point, we’re ready to leave if this isn’t made right soon. The manager looks at the email for another moment and says simply that he’ll honor the promotion (FINALLY!), but if we chose to leave, «he would understand». This was my last straw — no apology, and clearly no interest in retaining our business. It was ABUNDANTLY clear to me why this restaurant was empty on a Thursday night.
It’s one thing to not know about the special — I understand that all Melting Pot locations are franchise owned and run separately, but the fact that we were treated so poorly, made to wait an hour without even bringing water over, and left with the impression that our business was absolutely not important to this restaurant is completely unacceptable to me. Think twice before visiting.

Service was kind of slow tonight and it wasn’t even that busy. Food was good as usual
Downside to this place is that they need to put a Changing table in the men’s room. I had to change my four month old across the sinks.

The melting pot ruined my birthday. I went there on NYE (also happens to be my birthday) with my son and boyfriend. They had a special menu and would not make any substitutions for my son. The melting pot in Red bank had been more than happy to do so the year before. My son was devastated– we look forward to that once a year. The waiter didn’t even go back to ask and gave the excuse that they just had a meeting about making no substitutions. I will never go back to Somerville melting pot! Atrocious customer service.

Dinner took 2 hour and 30 minutes. The restaurant seems designed to fail. There are no bus boys and no assistant servers; instead, the waiter is responsible for everything. The servers don’t help each other or even communicate with each other. The manager watched everything, but really didn’t get involved. The food was pretty good (it’s the same food as any other Melting Pot) but it is really poorly run. Other Melting Pots don’t seem to have these problems.

Very fun time. If you’re looking to have fun while eating this is the place. The fondue cooking is fun depending on who accompanies you.
The meals are broken down into courses or you can chose from a preset combination.
Checks can get pretty expensive depending on what is ordered.
Good drinks! Fun food!

I have been to 4 other melting pot locations and I always had a great experience… This one was absolutely atrocious! Starting with my trip to the bathroom that was so strong with bleach I had to hold my breath I was almost made sick by the strong ammonia odor!
Then it took 15 minutes to be greeted by our waiter. Service was so slow. 3 of us were there at 5:15 and we didn’t get out of there until 8 pm !! When we got there there were only 2 other tables taken it was so dead, and on a Wednesday night! We couldn’t find our waiter to tell him he forgot the wine that was paired with our salad and we were finished with our salads at that point. We found a manager who told us he would «take care of it» which he never did anything about!
The management and service was so bad all night, our waiter forgot things, plates, forks, food just about every single visit he made to our table! We even saw him hiding in a corner on his cell phone several times! Water glasses stayed empty… I could go on and on! My advice is stay clear from this location!!! Very poor management!!!

My wife and I decided to try this location out due to a groupon we found. The location of the restaurant is on Main Street and has ample parking in the rear. On a busy evening there is not much street parking. We were greeted by a woman who was very nice to us and brought us to our table. The one thing that stood out all night was the service we received from our waiter, Rashawn. The customer service we received from him was outstanding. Rashawn introduced himself and took our drink orders. Unfortunately the bar made my drink alcoholic when it wasn’t supposed to be so I brought this up to Rashawn. Immediately me replaced my drink with a custom beverage me made for me (ice tea and lemonade with limes and lemons). He also stated that because of the mess up of my drink that my wife and I would have free refills of our drinks for the rest of the night. Great service!
We decided to start out with the fiesta cheese fondue and Rashawn made it perfect for us. A word of caution though, make sure your celery for dipping is fresh because as we got down to the bottom of the little celery/​cauliflower/​carrot bowl, the celery had a little brown on it but the chips and bread were plenty, filling, and suffice for the cheese fondue.
Next we had the traditional broth for our meal fondue. Because of the group my wife and I choose 3 items each for a total of 6. The best items we had were the Memphis BBQ pork, the mushroom and cheese dumpling thing (it has an Italian name that starts with an s), and the teriyaki beef. Make sure you leave the potatoes in there for a long time because they need time to cook. That was good but didn’t care too much for most of the sauces except the coconut curry one and the creamy scallion one.
Now the groupon does include 2 salads and we did not receive them between the cheese fondue and the meal fondue. We brought this up to our server Rashawn so instead we were able to get a free chocolate fondue (chocolate fondue is not included in the groupon). We tried something different this time so we got the Heath crunch milk chocolate fondue. Definitely a perfect way to end the meal. So all in all, the meals were ok but it’s the service that really outdid itself on our visit. If we were to visit again, we would hope to get Rashawn as our server. I could honestly just be happy with the cheese and the chocolate fondues.

Definitely a good one time experience for the four course meal, but I wouldn’t come back for it again. Though I would come back just for the cheese or chocolate fondue or both! The entrée was not all that tasty as the quality of the meats were average. The steak was so bland and tasteless since it’s cut in cubes but not marinated. For the price on the entrée portion of the four course meal, it’s just not worth it! I rather go to an asian hot pot restaurant for that. Yes, I would say that the dim lighting exuding its romantic and cozy fine dining feel may be where the price of the meal is going towards, but still, it’s not worth it! Cause with the four course meal and a drink, each person can easily drop a $ 100, which can be just as expensive as a one michelin star four course meal.
The chocolate and cheese fondues are much more delicious and fun! It’s literally impossible to go wrong with dipping fresh fruits in chocolates! Also, the last time we still had a lot of chocolate left, we asked to order a plate a strawberries, but our waitress gave us a plate for free! How nice! Definitely check out the flaming turtles!

Our server Joseph was great! He was extremely attentive and polite. We could tell he was trying to give us enough time to enjoy ourselves and talk, but also was trying to make sure our food came in a timely manner. We really appreciated the fantastic service that he gave us.
The one thing we didn’t like was that the manager kept coming to our table and turning our fondue pots on or off. We didn’t like that he was messing with the pots when we felt like Joseph was taking great care of us. It happened so often that we felt that the manager’s presence was overbearing and unwanted.

So disappointing. We came tonight (Monday) and the restaurant was really quite empty however also understaffed as two waiters told us. It took us 45 minutes to get our appetizer as the stove top was never turned on. When the server came back to check on us he realized he didn’t turn the stove on so did so. Or so he thought. It never turned on. There was roughly 10 – 15 minutes between each visit from our server followed by about 1000 «I’m sorry». Normally I’m very empathetic but this was ridiculous. Every single table in our line was complaining about a different problem. We didn’t even get anything comped despite the ridiculous wait times. $ 75 for cheese app and dinner entrée. Whole meal took 2 hours and 15 minutes. Bummed. We won’t be going back.
What’s more is that one of our pieces of cauliflower was moldy and the dips were crusty as if they had been left in the fridge uncovered. Gross.

We went with our friends for Dinner and the service was horrible. We waited for over 2 hours for our main course and finally decided to cancel the order as it was getting late. We just asked for s check and to our surprise the bill was $ 400 which included the food that we never received.
We were adamant not to pay for food we never ate and just paid for drinks and appetizers. We started walking out and the waiters blocked the doors and would not let us out till the entire amount was paid. We had little sleepy kids with us as we were not allowed to leave.
This is the worst restaurant ever and we will never go back here.

I think people have a love/​hate relationship with this place. We decided to try it because there was a Groupon deal.
It’s definitely pricey but we were full when we left. We did the cheese course with the artichoke dip, the regular broth for the meats course and the chocolate peanut butter for dessert (they ran out of the chocolate raspberry that was our first choice).
The thing we found most funny was cooking the meats and keeping track of the timing as we had to use the timer feature on our cell phones.
The cheese with the artichokes is just phenomal and I would’ve dipped the meats in it too if I could. For the meats course the filet mignon was delicious boiled with the teriyaki sauce. The only thing we wouldn’t necessarily get again would be the chicken dumplings — not that they were bad but the meats were just so much better. We also had the seasoned pork, shrimp and mushroom dumplings.
Dessert was just decadent with all the fruits and sweets to dip. You can’t go wrong with strawberries, bananas and pineapples in chocolate. I would’ve like more pineapple — there was only two somewhat small pieces. The chocolate and peanut powder covered marshmallows– amazing.
All in all we would go back again as it was a fun dinner activity.