Melting Pot — Restaurant in Maple Shade Township

I’ve been to many different Melting Pot locations over the years and loved them, so I chose it to celebrate my oldest son’s 21st birthday and I made an 8:45pm reservation. We were quickly, politely and professionally greeted by two females when we walked in, were seated immediately and after a few minutes our server Anthony arrived. Introduced himself and said it’s a limited menu for Valentine’s Day (we were fine with that) and that he’d be back with the first course and would take our drink order. We had no idea what the first course even was so when he came back we asked for more detail on what we would be receiving. He explained it and unfortunately one of my guests does not like tomatoes and there was no substitution that could be made, but not a big deal. We continued and ordered the remaining four courses. The first course arrived and we were served water, no drink order was ever offered. Then, after a long amount of time had passed, Anthony arrived with the cheese fondue and added everything to the pot and walked away for some time while he did other things. (Note, every server in the past would stir the cheese until it was melted and ready for us to eat before walking away, he just dumped the cheese, didn’t stir it, and went to do something else, but he just dumped the cheese in and walked away so we just sat there and watched it melt) Some time later he brought out our salads, but instead of serving them to us, he left them on a tray by our table for another 5 minutes while he walked away again to tend to his other table as we just sat and waited once again. Finally he came back and gave us the salads. Instead of offering refills, he spent his time cleaning the two tables next to us. I believe it was at this time that we asked to order a drink for my 21 year old son. He said ok and, oh does anyone else want something? This is typically done at the start of the dining experience, correct me if I’m wrong. Irritated and feeling like were a bother for even asking, , the rest of us just decided to drink water. Another long period of time passed he brought out a broth pot and a grill. I explained we didn’t order the grill, we wanted two fondue pots because it would be hard for 5 people to cook all that food in just one pot. He took the grill and returned with another fondue pot. Eventually, our entree arrived. My family enjoyed everything, it was delicious. When we were finished, we sat. And sat. And sat. And sat. I don’t know how long we waited but I can say it was long enough that all the broth in the fondue pots had cooked down and started burning at the bottom of the pots so we took it upon ourselves to turn off the burners. We still continued to wait. Alas, Anthony came back! . Our chocolate fondue was finally brought and put onto cold burners and we just sat there again and waited for it to heat up. Anthony said he was going to get our bill. We finished our dessert, it was delicious. We sat and waited again and finally the bill was delivered. I brought the wrong credit card and asked him to wait like 30 seconds so I can quickly move funds over. He said ok and left again. Came back about 5 minutes later and processed the card. I didn’t bother asking for a takeout box because at this point we had already been there over 3 long hours and just wanted to go home. I have never experienced service like this at a melting pot. The lack of attentiveness, the carelessness spilling of water when refilling my glass, his splashing of ingredients when pouring/stirring them in the fondue pots, the lack of communication and the long, long periods of time we spent waiting. We were very polite and friendly the entire time and didn’t complain once. The food was remarkable. My son will only have one 21st birthday celebration and this experience is what he will remember. I’m beyond disappointed. Your servers are absolutely a big part of the experience and it felt like ours didn’t want to be there, and that we were an inconvenience. I’m sure you have cameras. All this can be validated if...

Got the 'Bigger Night Out' for $120 - bill after drinks was $150, $180 after tip. My wife's wine had some sort of dark flake pour out of the flask into the glass. No big deal, we asked for a new serving. We start with the alpine cheese. My wife said it was too stinky for her, and I thought it was just okay. Different strokes for different folks I guess, and I enjoyed it somewhat. Wish we had asked for cheddar. Salads come out with some mustard-looking dressing on top. Tasted sweet like thousand island and didn't taste like mustard, but my wife wouldn't touch it. We weren't asked about dressing choices, and it didn't occur to me while ordering. At this point, my wife didn't want to send the salad back and was just anxious to have the proteins arrive. I had also asked for a coke after my initial beer when the salad arrived, and then again when the meat arrived. I never got that coke. We were advised to choose the skillet with our selections. The skillet arrived WITH the meat, so we didn't have time to heat it. More waiting. The meat was pretty varied in shape and size. It really should be perfect little cubes for the price. Very difficult to cook evenly. That's another thing - the cast skillet was pretty inconsistent and had hot and cold zones. It came pre-greased, but the salmon stuck right away, and subsequent meats stuck pretty badly. I was maybe 1/3 through the meat and had a sizable pile of burnt ends I had to scrape off the skillet with the provided tongs. The 'filet' was not especially tender at medium. The chicken was decent. Lobster was not properly cut/cleaned from the tail, so it fell apart when transferring to the skillet. The hot plate also spontaneously shut off in the middle of cooking the lobster. I found out maybe 90 seconds later, but it was really disappointing. They also forgot to include any lemon wedges, salt, pepper, these special seasonings I heard about, etc. Maybe I would have enjoyed the filet with a little salt and pepper. We were in a small booth near the hostess stand, and the table was honestly too small for the meal we had. It's a shame, because there were tons of large booths available. The server confirmed with us that we'd only have the option for one cook style bc of this (instead of having broth AND the grill skillet). When examining the shrimp, I noticed white discoloration which is typical of frozen/processed shrimp. Unappetizing and I didn't eat it. We were left with the meat for maybe 35-40 minutes before I had to ask a woman I thought was the manager for the check as she was bussing nearby tables. This was before the chocolate round even started. The waiter came back maybe 4-5 mins later and asked about the dessert course, and he allowed us to get chocolate covered strawberries to go instead. The 2nd star is really only because of our server. He had a good demeanor, was friendly, and he (Mark I think) was obviously frustrated with the team around him. I wish he had been more involved with fixing the obvious issues with the service tonight. While the place didn't seem busy, he did seem preoccupied with other customers. We still tipped $30 which was exactly 20%. In conclusion, our night without the kids ended up costing $180 plus gas and 2 hours of drive time. I could have spent $40 locally and been much happier. It's sad, because I have fond memories of fondue when I was a kid. I have to imagine the intended experience is not what we received tonight, but I can't afford to gamble again.

Edit (8/16/22): This is their solution to me wasting $200(food+gas), 5 hours (x2 people), and arranging to have a babysitter take all 3 of my kids. What would you do? Their reply:

"We are so sorry that we did not exceed your expectations on your visit to our restaurant. We always strive to make our customers feel special. Please come back so we can show you what we are really about; that's giving our guests the perfect night out. The Melting Pot in...

My husband has celebrated 4 of his last 5 birthdays here, and it is usually good. Tonight was the exception. The food was as usual, but the service was terrible. The server, although very nice, was just not attentive. It was small things at first, like I asked for no lemon in my soda, I got lemon. My husband asked for splenda, she brought Sweet and Low. When we corrected her, it to almost 10 minutes to get Splenda. Then it took 30 minutes to get a drink from the bar. Other tables were getting drinks, so when we asked about it, she said "the bar must be behind" When we ordered, we requested chicken pot stickers instead of salmon. After the food was delivered and she left, we discovered they didn't bring the pot stickers. No problem. We would just tell her when she came back to check on us. 20 minutes later, and she she still hadn't come back. We flagged down another server and asked him if he would get our server. He asked what was wrong, so we explained. "Oh, no problem! I will go get you pot stickers. " 15 minutes later, still no pot stickers and no sign of our server. I finally had to go to the front desk to get a manager. The manager got us the pot stickers, but never once apologized for the poor service. I think that was honestly an oversight, but still... at that point the server returned and the pacing of the dinner got sped up! I thought she was going to spill the chocolate the way she tossed it on the table. Oh, and she came up to me and said, "just so I understand, you said no salmon and substitute mushroom pot stickers, right??" "No, I said no salmon, substitute chicken pot stickers." "OH. I didn't hear chicken. "

In the past, they always put a candle in a small piece of cake, and sung "Happy Birthday". I had seen them do it to two other patrons tonight, and on the way to the table, I saw someone wrote, "Happy Anniversary," on a plate in chocolate, so I know that they still do this stuff. They were aware it was his birthday, and did none of this. It was not even offered. To their credit, they did give him a card when we first sat, but it would have been nice if they went that little extra mile, especially since it had been done twice for other patrons while we were there.

You go to a place like the Melting Pot for the experience. Honestly, you get about 15 dollars worth of food and pay $140.00. And I am usually ok with that. I understand that we go there for special occasions and we are usually well taken care of. But that was not true tonight. Very disappointed in the...