By Anne Ruisi
It’s taken months to plan and make the move to Mountain Brook, but Melt restaurant is drawing loyal customers from its original Avondale location and new fans since it opened Jan. 12 in Lane Parke.
“We’re so excited to see our loyal customer base, our friends and families, we’re excited to meet new people,” said Paget Pizitz Taylor, who co-owns Melt with Harriet Despinakis. “We have a couple of people that come in here every day. People say it feels like home.”
The restaurant is at 1011 Jemison Lane in the heart of the commercial development. While the location is new, the menu is substantially the same, Taylor said, although the restaurant expanded its bar menu.
“We wanted to stay true to who we are, and a lot of people asked us if we were going to change the menu, but people know us as Melt. We wanted to stay true to our roots,” Taylor said.
Melt, sometimes called the “grilled cheese restaurant,” is described on the restaurant’s website as “a modern twist on classic comfort food.” Besides grilled cheese sandwiches, Melt offers an array of sandwiches, salads, soups, appetizers and mac and cheese.
It’s all served in a fun atmosphere with kitschy metal lunchboxes holding napkins as the centerpiece on each table. The family-friendly restaurant draws customers of all ages, with board games and coloring to occupy the young ones while their parents relax and enjoy a drink before their meal.
The new location gets more foot traffic than the Avondale location did, and this spring when the weather warms, the restaurant will add outdoor seating.
When they were planning to open the Lane Parke location, Taylor and Despinakis hoped to keep the Avondale restaurant in operation, but staffing two restaurants was a challenge, Despinakis said. So, they offered the Avondale staff the opportunity to work at the new location, and every employee came with them to Mountain Brook after the original restaurant closed Dec. 23.
Flexibility Is Key to Success
Melt’s owners were initially invited to move to Lane Parke in the middle of the COVID-19 outbreak, but the timing wasn’t right, Despinakis said. About a year later, it was.
During the pandemic, they made changes necessitated as people stayed home more than they went out, like setting a separate area for takeout orders.
“Before COVID, we never would have done that. COVID taught us to be more fluid,” Taylor said.
They brought that takeout concept to the new location and have a complete area for carryout, Despinakis said.
“Now it’s almost like a separate business,” Taylor said.
Melt got its start in 2012 when Taylor and Despinakis, Mountain Brook natives whose families knew each other for years, got to know each other working on a gala for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
They realized they had the same work ethic and were interested in going into business together. After brainstorming ideas, they decided to buy a food truck “because we saw on the horizon the popularity of the food truck,” Taylor said.
Their food truck came from Miami and their offerings were simple at the time, with six sandwiches and a side on the menu, Taylor said. In June 2014, they opened the brick-and-mortar restaurant in Avondale.
Despinakis and Taylor said they’ve made mistakes along the way but learned from those experiences. That, a strong desire to succeed and the strong work ethic inherited from their families, who immigrated to America to make a better life, contributed strongly to their achievements at Melt.
“I think how we’ve faced those challenges brings us closer together,” Taylor said.
