Swirling one last glass of merlot as he spun surfing stories among friends, Mark Donaldson knew he would never see a moment like this again. Sunday night the lights inside Maitland's iconic Melting Pot restaurant turned off for good, 33 years after they had first lent the dining room its shadowy glow. 

 

Already a few minutes past closing time, the biggest table in the room was filled with the nostalgia of three decades passed within the same dark walls. The conversation was still flowing, and the staff was still smiling and buzzing around the room, emerging from the darkness with more of the boiling cauldrons of hot fondue that had made the tiny restaurant into an unsung monument. 

 

Donaldson once owned this place, in a time so far removed from today that he's fuzzy on the details of what he called "another lifetime." His heyday lasted seven years before he sold it in 1990; since then, its ambitious new owners, with a knack for marketing, expanded the chain from its original Maitland location to more than 120 franchises.

 

"It's seen a lot of changes," Donaldson said, "but it all started here." 

 

Donaldson knew a year ago that the restaurant was closing, but he picked tonight to give the old girl her royal send-off. When he arrived, he found a family of friends waiting, many at the same table where they had their first dates, or served their first customers.

 

"We spent our youth here," Donaldson said. 

 

Sitting across the table, John Carpenter talked about wearing the Melting Pot uniform for 10 years, surfing Cocoa Beach on weekends, and meeting his wife in the process. They've now been married for 10 years. 

 

"A month ago, it sank in that they're really closing it," he said. But this night was a long time in coming. 

 

Owner Dale Wallace said he had hoped to time the closing with the opening of his new location on Colonial Drive near Alafaya Trail, but construction tie-ups got in the way. He is directing his Maitland patrons to the Longwood location on State Road 434 at Markham Woods Road, which he and business partner Robert Frady also own.

 

The chain will have come full-circle when its original restaurant finally reopens its doors in a new location near the University of Central Florida — that's where you'll find the company's roots. Melting Pot founders Bruce Knoechel and Roy Nelson are graduates of Florida Technical University, which is now UCF.

 

They opened the Maitland location in April 1975 with just three fondues on the menu — Swiss cheese, beef and chocolate. Now there are 125 restaurants nationwide with more than a dozen fondue selections, such as Wisconsin Trio cheese fondue and Cookies 'n Cream Marshmallow Dream dessert fondue. 

 

After three decades in Maitland, the restaurant's closing is bittersweet for many. About 85 percent of Wallace's customers come in to celebrate a milestone: anniversary, birthday, graduation or even divorce — a lot of memories made in the old building.

 

But the building's location may have been its undoing. While the restaurant's capacity is 120, the parking outside allows for maybe 15 or 20 cars. "We were grandfathered in with the parking codes," Wallace said. Sometimes people had to park down the street or at a nearby bank.

 

Also, the Maitland Melting Pot was the only restaurant in the chain in the U.S. to not have a liquor license — the capacity must be 150 or more to become eligible for one.

 

The new location, which will be next to a Kobe Japanese Steak House near the Waterford Lakes Town Center, will serve liquor and also have outdoor seating and a "Maitland Room," which will be decorated with some of the same artwork found in the old location.

 

The Melting Pot restaurants continue to grow in popularity. Wallace said the fondue concept has caught on so well because it's easy for people to interact and have a good time, just as the table of employees did on its last night. 

 

"It's communal," he said. "People leave saying, 'Wow, that was a great conversation.'"