Melt Kitchen and Bar — Restaurant in Greensboro

This place is a solid 5 stars by Greensboro standards, and probably more of a 4 stars by a large city standard, which I think you'll agree is a great rating.

↗️Pros:

We the people really appreciate restaurants that give us access to a slightly more upscale range of ingredients, even for an everyday cuisine concept. Melt delivers in this department.

Go ahead, order their Melt burger and ask to add duck confit, brie cheese, and roasted red pepper dressing for the best damn burger within a 90 min drive. You're not going to regret a $30 total with tip. Trust me on this one.

Overall cleanliness and hygiene standards of Melt are quite high. One of the few sandwich spots around where table tops don't stick to your forearms as you sit down.

Kitchen staff, whenever I've managed to catch a glimpse of them, seem quirky, fun, and definitely have a major vibe going. I prefer people with a degree of passion cooking my food versus folks who look like they are forced to be in the kitchen, held there at a gunpoint.

Service staff can be a bit of a hit and miss, but their best ones are really good.

↘️Cons:

Other reviewers who have noted an overall bland profile of the menu were not totally wrong. The chef is stingy with salt and spice. Yes, you can, in theory, let the main ingredients speak for themselves, but given modern food production practices, most of these ingredients could use a bit of help with flavor.

The other major complaint about food for me is the salad veggies. They appear to be prepped way in advance and are not at their prime when served. Side salad in particular features carrot strands with a bone dry surface. They look like they visited the Sahara on their way to New Garden. Ditto radishes. Give us veg that at least tries to pretend to be freshly picked from a garden bed. Also, please do not refrigerate your cherry tomatoes, it kills off whatever flavor they had, and please please cut them in halves before adding to salad. A whole cherry tomato produces a dangerous mini explosion when bit into, risking our office attire and favorite vintage t-shirts.

Menu cards look tired and sad and need urgent replacement. They look like they don't belong. There is the pretty, shiny bar. There is the intimate, atmospheric sitting area. And then there are the menus that look like they were laminated when my grandmother was still in college.

Which brings me to my final point. Guys. It's 2025. Everyone and their uncle does takeouts and deliveries. Your online ordering form on the website specifies 40-50 minutes wait time for a sandwich! That's pretty much unacceptable to anyone looking for lunch, and that's pretty much the record within the Triads. Everyone else pumps out stuff in 20 minutes tops. 50 minutes for a burger is waaaaay "too relaxed" an approach, and hey, you do realize there is no waiting area for take-out customers at your joint? Folks are forced to stand and wait, blocking the entrance door, staring at the wall of liquor right across, contemplating unpleasant things like cancer and mortgage. Please find the way to put some fire under some behinds and bring us our food faster than that!

To conclude, I admire the Melt's courage to continue offering a slightly more gourmet menu in a small southern city where the majority has the kind of taste buds that won't appreciate this menu. The way I see it, there is a small, but solid group of people here in Greensboro who do enjoy this style of dining, myself included, and who will support places like Melt Kitchen. Going forward, I would suggest to the management that instead of trying to appeal to a broader "Greensboro crowd" by dumbing down flavor profiles, concentrate on your niche customers and their ever evolving needs. We want more. More spice, more crunch, more speed, more wow factor. We want low carb options! We want sugar free options! We want to know where our proteins come from. Yes, we are "those" people, but we are also your people. We are the people who slap duck and brie on a burger. We are your loyal...

So, today I tried a new place. I was so excited to try a new place because my friend suggested that they have bottomless mimosas on Sunday's so I agreed to go. It was my 3 friends and our 3 kids combined. I arrived at 12:30 and when I arrived it was already multiple groups of people already outside waiting. My friends walked up to me and said they had already been sitting outside waiting and put our names on the list a while ago, I said okay. When 1:30 came we went in wondering why our name hasn’t been called yet but they said they only had one big table and they were waiting on the party of 6 at that table to get up. In my head I was wondering why does this restaurant not have more than 1 big table, the host said we only ask customers to leave after 2 hours, but my friend said you told us a 45min wait, by this time it’s been a hour and 20 mins. Our kids were gettin restless and we were tired of asking when our table would be ready, after the host was telling us 45 min, then 30 then 1hour wait. We were confused because she seemed like she had a attitude with us and was tired of us asking her but our thing was, if you’re going to tell customers a wait time then stick with that one time frame, don’t keep adding on time. At one point we even asked the host if we could go up to the party of 6 and ask them ourselves but she said she prefer we don’t! When we came in to sit and wait, she was very rude asking us “ladies are you good?” Like ma’am yes, we are just tired of sitting outside and when we were outside the host kept asking us “so what do you guys want to do? Ma’am, if we want to leave and not wait, we will surely tell you. She did not have to ask us multiple times. Obviously, We were waiting! Finally, some of the guest from the party started to leave, while we were talking to them, they said yes we waited that long also and the host was telling us different times also, I said thank you and walked inside to their table, I said hey do u mind if me and our kids sit at the end of this table, the guest said sure, “we’re so sorry, we’ve been sitting here watching you guys but the service here sucks, we’ve been waiting on our check for about 30 mins, all I can tell you guys is please already have what you want in mind so you can order it as soon as you sit down.” I said thank you so much, and they began to play with our kids. As we sat down at 2:20, the host was very eager to clean the table, the server came over and took our order but she was very forgetful. Forgot the lemons, the kid lemonade, refill on water, the bottomless mimosas. It was just to many LITTLE things that she shouldn’t of forgotten but I can’t be mad at her, they seemed very short staff, she had like 7 tables but I did tell her like hey kids food should of came out first and I shouldn’t have to remind you about the dessert I placed at the beginning of me sitting down, the bottomless mimosa refills or water refills. As we began to wait on our food, that same host walked up to us and said hey can I sit two people at the end of your table, my friend said “that’s fine but when we asked you that same thing, you made it clear that you couldn’t do that” and she began to catch another attitude with us like she didn’t care to lose her job or care that she’s at work! She was kind of going back and forth with us and being smart saying “and I said” like we were the problem or something. We were all trying to hold our composure against her rudeness. When we started eating, they forgot my friends burrito and grits so we all felt awkward eating while she waited on her food but we ate anyways. The bartender walked over to us and said “hey, is it anyway that we can get your son to stop kicking the table? It’s disturbing other tables” like what??? We were livid because first of all he’s two, sitting in a high chair. You can’t stop a child from doing certain things! As long as he’s sitting down. That’s all that should matter and every table around us was playing with him so it sounded like it was the bartender making up this...

JEFF YOU ARE LYING. Refunded our money, when? After my review?? I will have to check. You NEVER OFFERED OR AN APOLOGY. All you said is she has a right to sweep. You just now changed the bot response, and created a total lie regarding what happened. Go ahead JEFF show the camera footage of her shrugging too!! .. DO NOT EAT AT THS PLACE.

BTW... wanna see a bad attitude after all we went through? Check out the canned response from the bot below my review. Would a restaurant owner who really cared respond this way?

My husband and I live in the area and decided to stop by Melt on New Garden Road in Greensboro for a bite to eat. The woman who seated us was nice enough and our server (didn't catch her name) was wonderful. Now to the awful part.

When we sat down, it was roughly 8:25-8:30 PM - they supposedly close at 9. We were told to sit anywhere and so we sat in the main dining room, not in the bar area. Upon arrival, there were two tables seated (a four top) and a family of about 3. We ordered our food, but before our food came, the other tables finished and left. A roughly 8:37, a waitress with a very bad overall disposition began to sweep. I noticed it but thought nothing of it as I assumed whe would quickly sweep near the tables that had just left and be done. Not the case, she continued to sweep the entire dining room including all the floors, the tables next to us on both sides, the tables behind us - EVERYWHERE. I felt my stomach turning as I was forced to look at her diry broom and a dustpan and watch food particles be swept us around me. She was not just sweeping, she was sweeping HARD and with a terrible attitude the entire time.

My husband and I decided that she really wanted to sweep the entire area, and obviously since we didn't want dust particles in our food we told our waitress to pack it to go as we didn't want to eat while she swept all around us. The waitress was nice enough and asked if we were sure and we said yes. We waited at the bar for our food to be packed and we saw our waitress go over the the sweeping waitress and tell her, "they don't like you sweeping around them." The Cinderellla sweeping waitress agressively shrugged her shoulders and said something to the effect of, "...I don't care." She continued to sweep.

On the way home, I called and asked for a manager and JEFF answered the phone. I explained my situation and his reply was,"I'm not trying to take up for anybody, but we sweep." I tried to explain to him that it is rude to sweep under customer's feet while they are eating. His reply to that was, "..well if she swept UNDER your feet, then..." I tried to explain to JEFF that she shrugged her shoulders when told we didn't like it. He continued to take up for the Cinderella waitress and an argument insued. I told him that I would like to speak to the owner and he told me he IS the owner. We continued arguing until JEFF HUNG UP ON ME.

Rude waiters and bad customer service comes from the top down. The Cinderall waitress should not be sweeping in close proximity to my food AND the rude owner JEFF does not want customers. Sweeping in close proximity to people while they are eating disrupts debris and dust and causes it to contaminate the food. I don't know what to do but will give the health inspector a call to see if he can tell me if this is a health code violation. After COVID this place was begging people to come in. I know this because we have lived in the neighborhood for several years. The waiters are rude because JEFF is rude. I can think of a few reasons why this may have happened that I won't bother you with here. I can say, do not spend your money in a place that has no concern for the health, safety, and cleanliness of your food. Think twice before going here as JEFF does not neet customers and the customer service is terrible. If you don't believe me, check out the other reviews regarding the nasty waiters and staff. Again, it comes from the top down and owner JEFF is in the wrong business. We will...