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Yesterday my wife and I visited The Melting Pot for our 5 year anniversary dinner. When we arrived the front staff was very nice, and one of the hostess seated us at a booth in the rear. On the way she asked if we were celebrating a special occasion, and we informed her that it was our anniversary. To which she says she'd let our server know (more to come on this later on in the review). We sat looking at the menu for a few minutes before server arrived, and he was very nice. He was quick to build a rapport wth us, and it was safe to say that my wife and I liked him immediately. From there he took our drink orders, and explained to process for us because it was our first time.
We opted for the unlimited entrees package, and our server was very helpful with recommendations ( all of which turned out fantastic). Afterwards our drinks came followed shortly by the cheese fondue portion of the meal which was delicious.
Here is where things go left:
After we were seated, there was a party of 6 seated across from us, a party of about 4 behind them, and a party of maybe 4 behind us. All within a 5 minute span. We were all sharing the same server, and we were roughly all eating on the same time frame. Thats 16 people spread over 4 tables, sat at roughly the same time. This is the melting pot, so it's not just look over the menu and pic what you want, and both our table and 4 out of the 6 people at the table across from us were first timers. We finished out cheese fondue, and our second round of drinks. The entree portion came out, and we were waiting to order more drinks but out server never came back for like 30 minutes. Another person had actually brought our food to the table, but nobody came back to check on us.
The lady to the rear started making comments at her table, and so I could tell she was having the same issues. Maybe about 5 minutes later I heard her speaking harshly to our server. I left the table to use the restroom and when I returned our server was back at the 6 person table (he had mainly been bouncing back and forth from that table and the one behind them). I asked him if everything was good, or if he had been removed as the server from our table. He informed me that he WAS still our server, but he had requested help from other staff members, because he had so much on his hands at the moment. We briefly spoke long enough for me to put in our second entree, but things continued to go downhill afterwards. I then sat back down with my wife, and waited a few more minutes before I got up and went to speak to someone at the front.
I informed the people at the front that our server (Jarell - Juh-Rell) i'm not sure of the spelling, so sorry, was doing a great job at first, but he's swamped. The lady behind us had apparently gotten into a spat with the manager before I walked up, and had stormed out. This kid was just being completely overwhelmed, and it wasn't fair at all. The table of 6 was putting in order after order of drinks, and asking questions, having to change things, and then their food came out missing items, and he was going back and forth to correct mistakes. They were drunk before the entrees got there, and really taking up a lot of time. When he got away the table behind them were doing the same. He really wasn't ignoring us, he just didn't have the time to serve us and the help that he said he requested didn't come.
He had mentioned to us that he hadn't been there long, but even if he had been having 4 tables back to back in the same section (sat at the same time) was a bit much. One server even made a rude comment to him as he passed by telling him that he was in his way, or "in his blind spot." The whole time Jarell kept a friendly demeanor, and just tried to get everything done.
Afterwards he came back to our table to apologize, but we told him there was no need for it. We mentioned to him that we were here for our 5 year anniversary, and he was surprised, and said congratulations. Which meant what the hostess that sat us definitely HAD NOT told him about our special occasion as she said she would when she sat us.
Anyways, He got back to the great service that he started with, and we finished our visit on a good note. I honestly cannot say enough good things about our server. He was dealt a bad hand last night, but handled it with a level of professionalism that I don't think i've ever seen displayed by anyone in the food service industry, and definitely not by someone so young.
As far as the food, We enjoyed the Bourbon bacon cheddar cheese fondue (a lot). The California salad was bomb. We got the premium endless entrees with the mojo broth (so much flavor), and the flaming turtle chocolate fondue was epic. Towards the end we just started throwing everything in the pot and dividing it up. We used the search and rescue spoon to get everything out. All in all 45 minutes out of our 3 hours was rough, but we still enjoyed our evening. read more