East Market’s long-vacant Melting Pot space finally has a new tenant
The fondue restaurant on Filbert Street shuttered more than a decade ago.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board will move the Fine Wine & Good Spirits store near Reading Terminal Market around the corner into the long-vacant storefront that once housed the Melting Pot restaurant.
The new location at 1219 Filbert St., between a Chili’s Grill & Bar and a 7-Eleven store across from the Marriott Hotel, will be about 4,300 square feet, roughly the same size as the current windowless store at 5 N. 12th St.
That store, which opened in 1998, was part of a late-1990s revitalization of the Reading Terminal train shed and headhouse, which included the Hard Rock Cafe at 12th and Market Streets and the short-lived Red Bell Brewpub across from the market on the 1100 block of Filbert Street.
The Melting Pot’s 10-year run ended in 2015. The property sits underneath a parking garage owned by Parkway Corp. among other ground-floor commercial spaces, including Maggiano’s Little Italy.
“I couldn’t remember Parkway ever having an empty storefront, and then the Melting Pot closed,” said Robert Zuritsky, president and chief executive of Parkway. Zuritsky said a few restaurant deals for the space came and went over the years before the pandemic put a longtime crimp in leasing.
“We’ve just been struggling there” to find a tenant, he said. “We were open to all sorts of ideas. The PLCB came in, and they wanted to do it.”
Paige Jaffe of Square Retail Consultants represented Parkway in the deal.
A PLCB spokesperson said the new store — a standard store and not part of the agency’s Premium Collection — would open in the first half of 2027.
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