Melting Pot Restaurant Review

Melting Pot Restaurant Review

I see some of the reviews where they say it’s overpriced, maybe so, but they just aren’t doing it right. Me and the wife usually go here once a year for our anniversary but this year we decided to just go on a random day. We both love cheese, and they do have good cheese:)

7860 South Gateway Parkway
Jacksonville, FL. 32256
(904)642-4900

Location: If you take the Gateway exit off of I-295 (formerly 9A) you will see it in the very first strip mall you pass. It is the corner restaurant.

Food: Ok, back to the people doing it wrong. Here are a couple helpful tips from your good ole food critic. First, go to their website and sign up for their e-mails. Right away you get an e-mail with a special offer on it. It changes all the time. This time it was a box of chocolate dipped strawberries. Also, they will send you specials for your anniversary (we always take advantage of this) and other deals.

Anyways, when my wife was on the website, she saw that they have a Happy Hour special from 9pm-11pm where you get half off of cheese fondue, desert fondue and half off select drinks. Now, this is the way to do fondue. On to the food! We went with the Spinach Artichoke Cheese Fondue, this is the write up: Rich Fontina and Butterkase cheese blend perfectly with spinach, artichoke hearts and garlic. Half off = $8.00.

It comes with green apples, broccoli, cauliflower, bread and tortilla chips to dip in the cheese. The green apples may seem weird, but you have to try it, it’s pretty good. I could do without the tortilla chips because I can get that anywhere, the novelty is in dipping the stuff you don’t usually do at home…right?? I liked this fondue but don’t freak out when you see them mixing it and at the very end, they sprinkle Tabasco sauce in it. You can barely taste it, barely, I promise. If you run out of stuff to dip, just ask your waiter for more of whatever you need (besides the fondue) and they will bring you more…no charge.

Once we were done with the cheese, we moved on to the chocolate fondue. It was my turn to pick and I went with the Cookies ‘N Cream Marshmallow Dream and this is the write up: Escape in a world of dark chocolate topped with marshmallow cream flambéed and topped with bits of delicious Oreo® cookies. Half off = $8.00. Now, this was pretty good but my only complaint is that the Oreo cookies weren’t broken down small enough.

I expected it to be in smaller pieces but some of these were HUGE. In the end, it made it difficult to get chocolate on all the dippers. The taste was great, just the chunks were too big. As far as the stuff to dip, they give you fresh strawberries, bananas, cheesecake, Rice Krispies Treats®, marshmallows, pound cake and brownies. Our strawberries may have been fresh at one point, but they came out ICE COLD and partially frozen. Like I said, we have been here several times and this is the first time this happened so I’m assuming it was a fluke.

Extras: Our waiter, Tyler, was very helpful and very knowledgeable. So, if it is your first time and you are nervous, ask if you can sit in his section, he will take care of you. And always, make sure you tip on the before “half off” prices, that is the etiquette. I learned that from my sister in-law who works in the food service industry (Thanks Courtney). Even though she still hasn’t convinced me to tip for curbside service :) I mean, you’re just walking the food 90ft to my car and I’m supposed to tip 15%? Maybe if it’s raining right?

The Good:
– Happy Hour Fondue! (Perfect way to try it out)
– Lots and lots of options
– Great wait staff

The Bad:
– There can be a wait (Call ahead and make reservations)
– There is only one location in Jacksonville

For the Happy Hour, the days/hours are Monday-Friday • 4 p.m.-7 p.m. & Friday and Saturday • 9 p.m.-11 p.m