The Melt Down on New Montgomery

The interwebs are aflutter with news that The Melt officially opens today at 11 a.m. Harnessing the nostalgic power of grilled cheese with laser-quick technology, the hopeful national chain asks you to pre-order your sandwich using a mobile app or your computer. When you arrive at the store you scan a QR code and your sandwich is ready in just over a minute, thus eliminating the need for lines, which are so 2010. Will your kids eat grilled cheese like this, scoffing at places like American Grilled Cheese Kitchen with the same disdain earned by black and white TV or—gasp—print media? Well, Michael Mina and Ron Johnson are involved with The Melt, so there's got to be something of merit here, right? And with owner (and Flip camera founder) Jonathan Kaplan's ambitions to “market like any big fast casual chain,” the remaining 499 The Melt outposts might move on to world dominance. (Facebook fans are already asking for branches in Japan and Seattle, even the Carolinas!)

One important factor isn't covered by a lot of the early media. How does this newfangled product of 90 seconds of perfectly calibrated heat and pressure taste? SFist has an answer, "like grilled cheese." And 7x7 adds, "you'll never get something as homemade-tasting at a Quizno's or a Chipotle." Yum. According to The Melt's fact-sheet, beer, wine on-tap, and even Sofia champagne cans will appear on a "tightly edited" menu in the coming months. So...promising? Tell Eater about the flavor, here or below.

· SFist Eats: The Melt [SFist]
· The Melt: Grilled Cheese & Soup for the 21st Century [7x7]
· Flip founder wants you to melt for grilled cheese [SFBT]
· All Previous The Melt Coverage [~ ESF ~]