Melting Pot — Restaurant in Virginia

*I would like to state I have no ill will toward this establishment. Just stating my experience with them as a patron.

My husband made reservations at The Melting Pot. We were excited about eating there. Had been talking about it all week. As we entered the restaurant, we were not greeted!!! Instead of a welcoming greeting we were met with a disproving glare from the hostess. After glaring at my husband and I as if she never seen a black couple before, she dryly asked if we had reservations. My husband politely informed her we did have reservations and gave his name. She then proceeded to look up our reservation, printed out some paper, rolled her eyes, and (again---dryly) stated "follow me" and rolled her eyes. At that point my husband and I had already felt a shady vibe from the hostess and were feeling uneasy. Looking at each other in confusion, as we were unsure what her issue was. BUT, we went ahead and followed the hostess to be seated. So, as we follow her we notice we are passing SEVERAL empty tables and booths. Going further, and further, and FURTHER to the back of the restaurant. She finally sits us way in the back of the restaurant at a broke/cracked table. The seat had crumbs in it and she low key slammed our menus on the table. Then, dryly told us the waiter would be with us and RPM walked away. At that point my husband and I felt so unwelcomed!!!!!!!! We just got up and walked out!!! However, (hindsight 20/20) we thought about what just happened, and decided to go back in a talk to the manager. My husband asked the hostess for the manager. She yet again, rolled her eyes (smh). The manager came ... my husband nicely and calmly informed him of the unwelcoming vibe and demeanor of the hostess towards us. The first, and only thing the manager said was "...this establishment is reservation only." Like....what???? HUH??? We had reservations and that wasn't even the TRUE ISSUE!!!!!!!! We got no apology from the manager for the hostess' bad attitude. He in no way tried to rectify the situation!!!!!! So, I guess the hostess was never reprimanded. Which tells me she is allowed to be selectively rude to any customer(s), whenever she feels like it. We finally decided to leave and go to another restaurant. Where we were greeted with a smile from the hostess, received great service, ate delicious food....and my husband left a big fat tip to the waiter AND the hostess individualy!!!!!!! So needless to say, we will NEVER eat at The...

Good food, painfully slow (unsatisfactory) service.

My wife & I ate dinner here on a Friday night. We did not have a reservation and were informed that the wait would be 20 minutes and that we could wait at the bar. Fine. We sat at the bar 20 minutes and hoped to have a drink while we waited for a table, but the bartender (who was also the manager that evening, apparently) never even acknowledged our presence. But we stuck it out because we wanted to try the food.

We were brought to our table, which was still dirty from the previous customers and told that our server would be with us soon. It took an inordinate amount of time for our server to get to us. The busser was kind enough to ask us if he could get us drinks to help the servers. We requested water and 2 glasses of wine. Several minutes later the server finally came to explain the menu to us, at which time we mentioned our request for beverages (request #2). Our server brought our water ~5 minutes later and took our order, saying that our wine would be right out. The busser came to check on us and we kindly mentioned that our server had not brought our wine yet (request #3). Cheese fondue was served about 15 minutes later; we had been at the restaurant for just shy of an hour now and we finally got our "appetizer". Still no wine. Asked the server again (request #4). The fondue was very good. Our wine finally came from the server as we were finishing our fondue, after we had been at the restaurant for more than an hour (WOW!). Our entree came a while later. It was delicious. The server took my glass of water to have it refilled---I didn't get it back until 30 minutes later after dessert was served. The chocolate fondue was also delicious. We spent nearly 3 hours at this restaurant because of the painfully slow service.

All of our food was excellent. The service was polite but atrocious (with the exception of the busser, who was doing his best to be helpful). I believe the management is likely responsible for the poor service, as the bartender/manager didn't even acknowledge our presence for 20 minutes at the bar. I would rate this restaurant zero-stars based on service, but the food was 4.5-star worthy. Even though the food was so good, we do not intend to return to...

The Melting Pot was an absolutely extravagant and excellent experience. We let our waiter Michael guide most of our choices and were absolutely wowed by both the food and the service. We had the Alpine cheese fondue which was delightful and was served with bread, fresh fruit, and some veggies. It had a really unique flavor and was delicious. The salad course was pretty good and they had a tasty house seasoning for them. It was a ton of fun cooking the meats and veggies cooked in a vegetable broth for the main entree. We did the Thursday date night special which came with some lovely touches such as candles and flower petals on the table. The meats were all fantastic, the restaurant had a little timer widget to cook all the meats and veggies to the right temperature and for the price of everything being quite high, it certainly felt like we got our money's worth. All the meats were really high quality and they all had sizeable portions. For two people, make sure you have a pretty empty stomach coming in. If I had to say anything remotely negative, I would say that the Long Island Iced Tea was quite lemony but it was very fairly priced so not even a major complaint. The butterscotch coffee we had with dessert was stellar so get that instead. Of course the last of it being the chocolate fondue was great. We did a dark chocolate one as that's our general preference but it was great with plenty of fruits, brownies, rice crispy treats, and other little sweet snacks to dip into it. The entire experience was extremely fantastic and a big part of it was our waiter Michael. He was incredibly personable, very friendly and constantly seemed like he wanted to go above and beyond to make it a wonderful experience. He was seriously a stand up guy and we would highly recommend anyone going to this location ask for him...