The Melting Pot is known for being very expensive. A Melting Pot customer filmed her and her group’s reaction to receiving their bill—they all laughed in disbelief.
The 35-second clip was uploaded by Emmy (@emmy.rey) where she filmed her group’s reactions to receiving the bill at Melting Pot. “Are you ready?” the woman asked. As soon as the woman’s eyes landed on the bill, they widened with shock and burst into laughter. Next, the woman handed it to Emmy who was sitting by the person filming. After reading the bill, she started laughing. Then, the bill was handed to the person filming and she started laughing once she read it.
However, in the caption, she wrote, “It was worth it.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Emmy via Instagram direct message and TikTok comment. The video amassed 2.6 million views as of Friday, resonating with viewers, agreeing with Emmy.
“Melting Pot is like a 3 hour dinner, expensive but worth it,” one viewer said.
“one of my favorite restaurants…. and yes when you get the bill OUCH!!!” a second concurred.
In addition, others shared their similar stories.
“My hubs was like ‘did we really just paid 200 bucks to cook our own food?’” one user wrote. “this happened to me! my friend read the pricing wrong and I didn’t double check.”
“bill was a little over 300,” a second shared.
“I took my entire staff out to the melting pot. Total cost was $1700,” a third commented.
In a follow-up video, Emmy revealed the price of their order. In the video, she unveiled their order which she and her group bought for $297 after the tip. A bread and cheese platter sat in the center along with a bowl of cheese fondue. Then, the video cut to the main course where there was shrimp, potatoes, salad, and cucumbers. For dessert, they had milk chocolate fondo along with fruit.
This begs the question, why is Melting Pot so expensive? This was a discussion on Reddit. User CatOfGrey explained, “Remember that the cost of food is often the cheapest part of the overall cost of dining. Things like rent, and paying staff (cooks, wait staff, cleaning staff, food prep, bookkeeper, manager…) are more a part of overall cost.
They continued, “That said, The Melting Pot is a slow meal. A usual time there is about 2 hours, could be 2.5 hours with dessert. That same table could service three meals at a more typical restaurant. That means that a Melting Pot needs to make more for each meal just for the time difference. Yes, some of the difference is the tables themselves – the tables have induction stoves that are able to boil the pots. But the cost of those are spread over hundreds of diners, so it’s not as much as it seems on the surface.”
The Tampa, Florida-based chain has been in existence since 1975 and today boasts 91 locales across the U.S. and Canada.
