Top Performing Melting Pot Franchisee Duo, Kim and Hollis Silva, Celebrates Growth With the Brand and The Locations’ 15-Year Anniversary

The Melting Pot, the 97-unit experiential dining fondue concept, has developed programs to drive its existing staff forward in line with their goals. For many Melting Pot employees who have been with the company for a while, the prospect of owning their own location is quite an appealing one, and the franchisor’s Path to Grow program supports just this. Kim and Hollis Silva, who own both the Spokane, Washington and Boise, Idaho Melting Pot locations, found their way to ownership through the Path to Grow program nearly a decade ago. This program helps managers who may have never financially been able to own their own restaurant but have passion for the industry and the brand. 

“Before franchising, I worked in hospitality, specifically for Starbucks and Alaska Airlines,” Kim said. “Eventually, I ended up at Melting Pot as a server, but worked my way up to bartender and then general manager. After learning the ropes, I was interested in buying the location in Spokane. Hollis and I bought that location in 2016, and then Boise in 2020.”

Hollis has a similar experience with roles in the restaurant business as far back as age 13.

“My first job was washing dishes at my friend’s family’s restaurant,” he said. “In high school, I worked for Red Robin and then ended up becoming a manager after high school. Similar to Kim, I worked my way up from server to bartender to manager.”

Though Hollis explored career paths outside of the restaurant industry, even going to college for electrical engineering in his late 20s, when the opportunity to purchase the Spokane location arose, he worked there for a year before buying in with Kim.

The Melting Pot’s Path to Grow Program

“I was really close with the old owner. After working there for a while, we decided to work on a program called Path to Grow,” Kim said. “It’s a great program from The Melting Pot that sets up people who might not be able to afford a restaurant otherwise, to train them and then help them fund the restaurant. They definitely know that their general managers are super passionate about the brand and will be amazing as an owner.”

After purchasing their first restaurant in Spokane in 2016, the pair fell even more in love with the brand and later bought a second location — Boise — in 2020.

“It’s a people business for sure,” Hollis said. “It is definitely different than it was pre-COVID-19, but that aspect is still there.”

After surviving, and even thriving, on the way out of a pandemic, the pair has built a strong team and is considering their future with the brand. Just this year, both locations celebrated their 15-year anniversaries.

“We’re passionate about our business,” Kim explained. “We are actually trying to come up with our five-year plan. We were looking at a number of different areas. We’re considering a new location where Melting Pot has never gone, or buying an existing one. We’re looking to add restaurant number three in the next year.”

To find out more information on costs to buy this franchise, please visit https://1851franchise.com/meltingpot/info.