By Daniel Azarkman.
Starting today, you can take even shorter lunch breaks if you’re downtown and in the mood for grilled cheese and soup. THE MELT is opening the first of an anticipated 500 (yeah, you read that correctly) fast-casual locations that let you order through a mobile app and skip the line when you pick up your food. From Jonathan Kaplan, the entrepreneur behind the Flip video camera, the new chain is offering five cheese-and-bread permutations and five soups, with the menu changing once per season. Kaplan brings in his technology background with a uniquely designed sandwich press that gets your “melt” done in under a minute, allegedly with an ideal balance of toasted outside and gooey inside. Beyond the first store on New Montgomery, three more Bay Area locations are planned to open before the end of the year (1 Embarcadero Center, 345 Spear Street Suite 125, and Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto); their next market has yet to be announced. Hours are Mon-Fri 10:30am-9pm, and Sat 11am-6pm. 115 New Montgomery St. at Minna, 415-691-6536.
Photo provided by The Melt.
