A Pot Of Gold For Fondue Franchisee

Los Angeles Times:

Like many baby boomers, Mira Selbo had her first brush with fondue in an avocado-green earthenware pot her parents owned and that her older sister would haul out for parties.

‘Way back when,’ Selbo recalled, not very affectionately, ‘it was like melting Velveeta.’

That was in the ’70s, when fondue (from fondre, French for ‘to melt’) oozed its way into the American culinary consciousness.

Today Selbo is the owner of 3 Melting Pot restaurants in Southern California, including one in Irvine that in the fiscal year that ended in July recorded $4.2 million in sales, more than any other Melting Pot in the nation - and there are 120-plus around the country.

‘I don’t know how it happened,’ she said. ‘I’m exhausted.’

Read on…