Dear John Letter to Melt Bar and Grilled

I'm breaking up with Melt.

Most Clevelanders between the ages of 18 and 45 are familiar with Melt Bar and Grilled, even if they have not eaten there. Melt boasts 2 locations that serve up specialty grilled cheese sandwiches on steroids. Every plate looks like it has been ordered with the works...we're talking Dagwood Bumstead-style sandwiches. And every plate is delivered to your table by a young hipster who would probably seem downright cherubic if it weren't for the scrawls of body ink Jackson Pollack'ed across their forearms.

It's young. It's fun. It's relaxed. It's tasty. It's a reasonably accurate snapshot of Cleveland. And it's no good for me.

Let's rewind. When Melt first opened its west side location some 5 years ago, I visited the restaurant from time to time. It was a convenient and enjoyable place to meet friends who lived on that side of town. If we could get a table (the wait times are mind-bogglingly long for a city whose population is steadily declining), we'd get a sandwich that really stuck to our ribs. It all went along swimmingly, and without incident.

Until Melt opened the east side location. Melt's newest branch is minutes from my house, so it became even easier to meet friends for a brew and a sandwich in a casual setting... except I now seem to be unreasonably crippled by the experience.

Every time I go to Melt, I have a great time. I love the sassy, friendly, heavily tattooed servers. I love the selection of specialty beers. I like the devil(and diet)-may-care attitude about food. Melt seems to be saying, "Yeah, we're fattening. So What?" As you look around the room, not a body on the staff seems to weigh over a buck thirty, so you buy in. The whole Melt concept is pretty appealing, so you let the night be a mockery of your dietary values.

Your dedicated regimen of eating light now completely down the toilet, you decide to order a triple decker grilled cheese stuffed with an unholy combination of savory starches and proteins that is blanketed in a thick coating of beer batter and thrown into the deep fryer, plated up with seasoned french fries. And wow. It's GOOD. It's so good in fact, you also forget your usual self-control and moderate appetite and darn near finish the plate. You are having so much fun. Your server is telling gripping tales of adventures in Amsterdam youth hostels. The limited edition micro brew is going down easy. Everyone is laughing. So you order dessert. You've gone this far, you may as well try the deep fried Twinkies topped with fresh berry compote. You're still laughing and giddy with a zest for life as you hug your dining companions goodnight in the vestibule. "We really need to come here more often," you all agree.

And then somewhere between the vestibule and your mattress, you realize that you kind of feel like you ate a bag of fast-setting concrete. Or maybe you had some plans to get a couple things done after dinner and before bed...except now...the...food...coma......cannot......be.........reckoned.........with. In any case you lay down, feeling not unlike a beached whale, and wait for sleep to relieve you from your shame.

At least, that's how my last couple visits have been. And it hurts my heart nearly as much as my tum-tum. Why can't it work out between me and Melt??

I mean, Melt is casual weekend material tailor-made for a gal like me...I like the energetic atmosphere. I like the unapologetic Cleveland comfort food concept. I like the kitschy rock and roll menus. The whole thing is such a good time that I want to believe that my metabolism would forgive me the occasional dietary indiscretion at Melt.

But, alas...it is not to be so. I guess I've crossed some invisible line. I can't sit next to the amplifiers at a concert. I can't stay up past my bedtime. And I can't eat dinner at Melt.

Perhaps it's time for me to trade in my grilled cheese for molecular gastronomy, my triple-deckers for "small plates".

Everyone endures some heartache. Remember your first case of I loved him/her, but the love just wasn't returned? You were stuck in denial for a while, making phone calls you shouldn't have, driving past to see if the lights were on, and other such sad demonstrations of an unwillingness to move on until one day you finally woke up free, unchained, and able to move on to someone better.

Melt...I really loved you, but you never loved me. I'm finally waking up and I think it's time for me to move on to someone better.