Disclaimer: This rating is exclusively based on a very brief experience at Hot Pot, none of it food related.
We walked in around 8ish on Saturday night and saw 3 open tables (two 4 top, and an 8 top which was 2 tables slid together). But, there was a couple sitting down waiting for something. A server came over, asked if we wanted a table. She must read minds, we said yes. She looked around, saw the 16 open seats and said... "want to wait 20 minutes?". I was completely caught off guard with that line of questioning. This place maybe had 20-25 people eating, that is 30-40% of the place was open yet there is a 20 minute wait. The obvious answer was no.
There was no markings on any of the tables signifying reserved, and she didn't claim that they were. 1 of the 4 tops needed to be bussed but there wasn't any rush for them to get that done, and we weren't offered to wait a few minutes to get that table ready.
I wanted to try this place after reading about it in New Times but there is something about atrocious service/communication that sours me on places. That and apparently we would need the place to be at less than half capacity to get seated.