We’re taking the romance a step further this Valentine’s Day by sharing the love on Facebook through our Cupid’s Fondue Forks Facebook application that gives fondue fanatics a chance to win dinner for two at The Melting Pot with their special someone.

Our Cupid’s Fondue Forks application available on The Melting Pot Restaurants, Inc. Facebook page and all local Melting Pot Facebook pages from Jan. 23 – Feb. 17, gives you the opportunity to enter to win one of 10 $100 Melting Pot gift cards. All you have to do is share the love by hitting your special someone with Cupid’s Fondue Forks. Or two. We won’t judge.

Ten randomly-selected winners will be announced on The Melting Pot Restaurants, Inc. Facebook page on Feb. 21 and each winner will be notified via email. Winners will have the opportunity to experience the Fondue Effect and ignite romance even after Valentine’s Day has come and gone during The Melting Pot’s four courses – cheese fondue, salad, entrée and the romantic chocolate dessert fondue finale.

Don’t forget to make reservations if you’re planning to experience the Fondue Effect this Valentine’s Day! To make reservations, find locations or view local Valentine’s Day specials, please visit our website.

Making a stop in Boston, the first course features an original American beer with Boston Lager Cheddar Cheese Fondue. In this course, Samuel Adams Boston Lager ® and cheddar and emmenthaler cheeses are accented with Nueske’s applewood smoked bacon, onion, Dijon mustard, Tabasco® and scallions.

Next, the road trip heads to the Midwest for the Wisconsin Wedge Salad, an iceberg wedge accompanied by Roma tomato slices, Emmi Roth USA gorgonzola, Nueske’s applewood smoked bacon and peppercorn ranch dressing.

The entrée course features fresh meats, seafood and pasta with influences from various regions like the Chesapeake Bay with Old Bay® shrimp. Other highlights include Buffalo chicken, Memphis-style barbecue pork tenderloin, seasoned black Angus sirloin and wild mushroom sacchetti pasta.

For dessert, Chef Shane concludes the tour of America with a take on the timeless American classic peanut butter and jelly known as Chocolate Wildberry Crunch Fondue. This version of the childhood favorite combines milk chocolate, crunchy peanut butter and a purée of blackberries, raspberries and strawberries.

To make reservations, find locations or view the complete menu, please visit http://www.meltingpot.com.

As part of our long-term partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®, The Melting Pot Restaurants, Inc. will host its second annual Melting Pot Golf Classic on Nov. 14 at Emerald Greens Golf Resort & Country Club in Tampa, Fla. to support St. Jude in the fight against childhood cancer.

Not a golfer? The event will also feature two cooking classes with Front Burner Brands (restaurant management company that supports The Melting Pot) Corporate Chef Shane Schaibly and GrillSmith Corporate Chef Joe Guli. With six locations in the Tampa Bay area, GrillSmith, an affiliate of Front Burner Brands, is a refined-casual, chef-inspired restaurant concept that specializes in innovative and creative interpretations of classic American dishes that surprise the palate, engage the mind and excite the senses.

The Melting Pot Golf Classic will feature Meredith Walusek from “The MJ Morning Show” on 93.3 FLZ playing golf in the tournament and a hole-in-one contest for the prize of a Lincoln MKX two-year lease donated by Parks Lincoln of Tampa. Captain Fear, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ mascot, will also be on hand.

Other tournament highlights include player gifts from golf’s leading manufacturers, raffle drawings, a live auction, a wine and cheese reception and an evening program including dinner and awards. The tournament will be open to all players starting at 10:30 a.m. with lunch sponsored by Front Burner Brands’ restaurant concepts Burger 21 and GrillSmith to be held from 11 – 12 p.m. followed by a 12 p.m. shotgun start.

Media sponsors include Brighthouse Networks, Clear Channel Radio and Clear Channel Digital.

The Melting Pot’s goal is to raise $100,000 through sponsorships and players for St. Jude. The registration deadline is Nov. 4, or when all spots have been filled.  For more information and to register, please visit www.meltingpotgolfclassic.com.

Vacation…the beach…no school?

We know that fondue doesn’t often come to mind but here at The Melting Pot, we think that should change.

After all, summer is all about spending time with family and friends while school is out. A family fondue night is the perfect addition to the repertoire of summer fun activities that the whole family can enjoy together. At The Melting Pot, we deliver a unique, interactive fondue dining experience that provides opportunities for families to connect and create memorable moments around the fondue pot.

Maybe you decided against taking the big family vacation to the beach this year. Why not grab the kids and take a mini summer escape to The Melting Pot? Before you know it, school will be back in session and you’ll wish that you’d taken more time to savor precious summer moments with your family.

Visit the locations page on our website to see if The Melting Pot location nearest you is featuring any fun summer events. Specials and events vary by location.

1. Read the Declaration of Independence. Have you ever read the Declaration? Take a moment this year to review the document that declared our nation’s freedom.
2. Tour a historic site in your town. Visiting a battlefield, fort, historic landmark or another site that has ties to our country’s revolutionary past can help make Independence Day come alive for you.
3. Watch a patriotic movie. Pop some popcorn and gather your friends and family to watch a film that involves the theme of freedom. Try “Saving Private Ryan,” “Independence Day” or “Air Force One.”
4. Get the party started with a patriotic playlist. Get in the spirit with songs like “God Bless the U.S.A,” “American Girl” and “Born in the USA.”
5. Send a letter or care package to a soldier. There are a number of organizations that ship care packages to soldiers serving in remote areas of the world. The Melting Pot restaurants in the Tampa Bay area have developed a partnership with Treats for Troops, an organization based in Tampa Bay, to collect items ranging from toothpaste to beef jerky to send to our armed forces. This simple act is a great way to encourage our troops and thank them for their service.

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

Here at The Melting Pot Restaurants, we know firsthand that this saying is true.  We love having the opportunity to celebrate Father’s Day with many dads as they enjoy a unique fondue dining experience while spending quality time with their families. We look forward to seeing many of you fondue fanatics and your fathers very soon.

While we know food is always a hit with dad, we’ve put our heads together to provide a few other suggestions for melting dad’s heart this Father’s Day.

1. Recognize the irreplaceable, fearless leader that he is. (No. 1 Dad mugs never go out of style.)
2. Take the time to tell him how much you care.  Express your love through a simple card or go all out with a sonnet in Shakespearean style or a full musical number.
3. Do something nice for him. Let him take a break from some of the mundane tasks that break his back. Mow the lawn, wash his car, clip his toenails?…
4. Surprise him with a special delivery. Why should the florist only knock at the door for mom? Send Dad his own bouquet complete with his favorite things (hint: food works well here).
5. Join him in practicing his favorite hobby. Whether it’s fishing, golf, building model airplanes or vegging out in front of the TV, do it with him and do it with a smile.

The Melting Pot's top fundraisers stand proudly in front of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

As part of a long-term partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, The Melting Pot Restaurants is proud to host an annual Thanks and Giving campaign to raise funds to contribute to the fight against catastrophic childhood diseases. Recently, The Melting Pot team members who raised the most money during the 2010 campaign were treated to an all-expense-paid trip to Memphis, Tenn., to visit St. Jude.

These 10 team members and their guests visited Memphis from April 17 – 20, enjoying a stay at the luxurious Peabody Hotel and a trip to Graceland – home of Elvis Presley.  Most importantly, the team spent a day touring St. Jude and hosted a Fondue Fiesta at St. Jude Target House – a housing facility where families live while patients go through treatment.

Bob Johnston, president of The Melting Pot Restaurants, gets creative with some St. Jude patients at the St. Jude Target House.

The team members received five-star treatment while in Memphis as a reward for their hard work, dining at excellent restaurants and traveling through Memphis in Hummer limousines. However, the most notable and meaningful part of the trip was the tour of St. Jude.  The Melting Pot has raised more than $6 million for the hospital since its partnership began in 2003, and many of the team members who went on the trip have been fundraising for St. Jude for years, with some of them raising thousands of dollars.

“It is always an honor to tour St. Jude and see exactly what our fundraising dollars are going toward,” said Bob Johnston, president and COO of The Melting Pot Restaurants, Inc.  “Seeing our team members tour St. Jude and have life-changing moments in Memphis is one of the most rewarding parts of what we do as a company.”

Melting Pot team member Chris Waters leaves the St. Jude Target House kitchen with some delicious chocolate fondue to serve to patient families.

While at St. Jude, the team members did more than just tour the hospital!  They hosted a Fondue Fiesta for the kids at St. Jude Target House, serving up tacos and chocolate fondue, playing games and painting faces.  One of our team member’s guests, a professional musician, serenaded the patients on the fiddle. The Melting Pot team members, St. Jude patients and family members also enjoyed a competitive game of kickball.  The Fondue Fiesta was quite a success.

At the conclusion of the trip, many of the team members felt more committed than ever to the St. Jude cause of finding cures and saving children. These individuals will be life-long advocates for the children of St. Jude.

The Chef to Plate program aims to educate the public about how so many people are affected by gluten intolerance. We teamed up with GIG last year to launch our gluten-free menu for guests with this sensitivity and plan to continue raising awareness about celiac disease in support of the millions impacted.

Considering one in 100 people have celiac disease, an autoimmune disease that damages the intestine when proteins from wheat, rye or barley (gluten) are consumed, The Melting Pot recognized the need for a gluten-free menu offering and launched this initiative in 2010.  GIG analyzed our menus, products and ingredients by checking labels and nutritional facts to determine items that contained gluten and advised accordingly during the creation of the gluten-free menu that is now available for guests.

Chef to Plate is a national awareness campaign of the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America (GIG), a national nonprofit organization that has been providing consumer and food industry support and education for 35 years.

Have you tried our gluten-free menu? What did you think?

As you search for the perfect gift for mom this year, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Moms still love homemade. (Think macaroni art.)
2. Pets can be fun. (Just don’t get a cow unless mom lives on a farm.)
3. Do the dishes! Just one clean dish could make mom’s day.
4. Go green! (Hey, everybody’s doing it.)
5. Who doesn’t love a good (or bad) serenade? (Just watch your song choice.)
6. Chocolate covered strawberries can melt mom’s heart, too.

Karen’s grand prize-winning video proved that she and her husband are the biggest cheese fondue fanatics. In the video, her husband jumped into an alligator pit to rescue a certificate for free cheese fondue from The Melting Pot. This cheesy video was creative, entertaining and very well presented. Check out the videos section of our Facebook page to view the winning video, as well as the runner-ups and honorable mentions.

Karen and a guest will travel to Wisconsin to enjoy a VIP tour of Emmi Roth USA’s Monroe, Wisconsin creamery with The Melting Pot’s Head Chef Shane Schaibly. They’ll have the opportunity to tour Emmi Roth’s USA’s creamery, curing cellars and test kitchen facilities where they’ll meet with the company’s corporate chef. Karen and her guest will also enjoy a cheese tasting and fondue lunch and a two night stay at the Chalet Landhaus hotel in New Glarus, Wisconsin.

Congratulations, Karen! Thanks to all the cheese fondue fanatics who participated in the contest!