Melting Pot — Restaurant in Columbia

Zane was our waiter this Sunday. This is our favorite restaurant and we frequently come in. It was also my best friends birthday so I had called about 2 hrs ahead of time and ordered the romance package which includes a bottle some flowers and chocolate strawberries to be on the table when u arrive. I’ve done this several times before bc it just feels special for special occasions. When we arrived, the bottle and strawberries weren’t there so I asked the lady that seated us and she said she wasn’t old enough to grab it so when Zane came over I asked about it again. He seemed irritated w me immediately and even told me I was wrong that I had NOT ordered the package. But that he would ‘see’ what he could do . I thought it was rude but didn’t make a big deal. He brought the bottle - we moved on - no big deal, We had a nice dinner. At the end when he brought our checks right before close we asked for some to go sauces and he told us they were locked away and he couldn’t get them. I asked him could he please unlock them and he told me the manager had the key so that wouldn’t be possible. So I asked to speak to the manager . He told me he was gone for the night. I asked could he call him and he stormed off and came back to tell me we were only allowed 2 sauces (we asked for 3) I told him we would be glad to pay for the additional 1 if there was an upcharge. He stormed off pretty obviously and came back angry w a tray FULL of 1 of every sauce they had for each of us and slammed every single container on the table until one of them cracked and busted from the impact.He visibly scaled back atp seemingly knowing he was going too far. We just left bc it was her bday and didn’t want to ruin the night. But we were overcharged for sure and I think it’s worth noting that there were two tables of people just being served their entrees as we were walking out- w fresh food and sauces. Which makes me wonder why he went to such great length to prevent US from having any. Also there was a man in a button down burgundy shirt behind the bar that came and asked us if we were enjoying our dinner about halfway through. I believe this was the manager. And I didn’t want to ask bc i wondered if he was already aware as we stopped to ask for water to go and he seemed to be anticipating a complaint. This is the worst experience we’ve had here. We love this place and we have come probably every other month for years. We love the sauce ambiance and normally welcoming staff. At 300$ for dinner. I am super disappointed that we did not have the usual experience at our usual place and we hope to never...

My experience at The Melting Pot was somewhat of a disappointment. Most disappointing, was that my server dishonestly told the restaurant that I said I wanted to leave a $50 tip but the card machine did not register the tip. My bill was close to $250 for (4 people) and the server held the card machine for me while I flustered my way through trying to decide how much I wanted to leave and not wanting to offend my server in the process. I’m accustomed to having a little privacy while I consider and enter my tip amount. It wasn’t until I was on my way home that I checked my email to review my receipt and realized that in all my frustration of trying to type in my tip while being watched, that I’d mistakenly thought my added tax was actually my tip and that I hadn’t left a tip at all. I felt so bad that I called the restaurant right away to correct the problem. That was when the person who answered the phone assured me that my tip had been added and that the server told them how much I said I wanted to leave. I was surprised to hear that and asked how much she said I would tip. They told me $50 but also assured me that if this was incorrect they would change it for me. I asked them to change it to $35, which is still a stretch for my budget, but I felt that the server should at least be compensated. It was just disappointing that the restaurant simply took the word of the server when I hadn’t signed for that. I may have never realized that money would have actually been stolen from me had I not checked my receipt when I did and called. Sure there would have only been a $15 difference, but that amount stolen would have been greater had I planned to leave a smaller tip. That dishonesty made me question the rest of my experience with the server. I wondered if the suggestions of what we should order, as new guests, was all to run my bill up to result in a higher tip. Although we were seated on time, our whole experience lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes; more than I bargained for. We had to keep telling our server that we were ready for the next dish. This visit was at the request of my daughter, who was celebrating her birthday and wanted to try something new. I think the experience could have been better, but it will be a long time, if ever, before I return. I didn’t feel like the experience nor food was...

Overall recommendation: Avoid if possible. More details read on. We made a reservation for 4 at 630 on Friday night ( birthday dinner) We were sat right away in a booth, seats are what I would call broken in dinner bench seats, all vinyl so very stuffy after sitting for a few minutes. Our server came over in a few minutes and was pleasant, she explained how things worked and we got started, we chose the 4 course dinners, everyone at the table must get the same fondue and style of cooking. She recommended the cheddar as the most popular, so we tryed it, hand mixed at the table is a nice touch but didn't make up for what I can't discribe as bland beer cheese with stale bread that was not warm or toasted, just cold bread sitting on the counter to long. We still ate it as for that price we were going to try to eat it all, for shadowing we did not. Next course salad, how do you messup salad? You drench it in a sugar ranch is the best way to discribe it, ranch dressing but very oddly sweet ( disgusting, no one at the table ate it) when we asked the server, her only response was "yea it's not my favorite". So on to the main course, we all chose the griddle not knowing what we had coming, a small 10in by 10in skillet that was only just hot enough to cook on. The steak peices were very disappointing, a brown sugar burban rub( way to much of it, tasted like candied black pepper) teriyaki sirloin (covered in that weird teriyaki glaze glop, that made the steak turn gray and had little taste if any) and garlic pepper steak (absolutely drenched in the stuff, and I mean Covered, it could of bin chicken and you would not be able to identify it.) Cooking our little steak bits took a solid hour on the barely warm griddle. We each had at least half of our steak left, server asked if we were full, we stated the concern over the flavors to a response of " yea a lot of people complain about that" "are you ready for dessert then?" sure, we chose the yingyang (dark and white chocolate mixed, with assortment of sweets to dip, this one was good and we filled up on this, although the dip was more like chocolate syrup than real chocolate.) overall price for 4 people..... $81 each We were so disappointed, we wanted to like it but it misses the mark so bad, we will not...