Max & Erma’s

Last night was my first time at a Max and Erma’s.We were seated immediately as the restaurant wasn’t busy when we arrived. Our drink orders were delivered quickly. That’s when the waitress disappeared! She finally took our order which came quickly… it was delivered by the kitchen staff. still no waitress! I ordered a burger platter and slaw and my husband had a salad with «blackened» shrimp. The only condiments on the table were S&P so I had to wait quite a while for the waitress to reappear to request ketchup, my missing slaw and drink refills. By then my burger was cold. my husband was well on his way to finishing his salad! Had the burger been hot. it probably would have been the best burger I’ve had in quite some time. the ingredients were fresh and the meat was over the top. The «blackened» shrimp on the salad was not blackened. it was sprinkled with blackened seasoning making it rather mundane. The frozen strawberry/​lemonade was delightfully refreshing on a hot summer day. To end the meal we were offered free cookies, it was a Wednesday promotion! I asked for oatmeal raisin and received chocolate chip. It seemed like an appropriate end to a meal that was a disaster from the beginning! Since my husband has been to different Max and Erma’s he assured me they are not all like this one and the food is generally pretty good. The Peters
needs to take a long look at retraining it’s wait staff. it could be a little gem in the middle of some pretty stiff competition!

We have previously eaten at this restaurant and enjoyed our meals. Last night we went at my son’s request for his birthday dinner. There were six of us but the restaurant was not crowded so we were promptly seated. Our waitress did not check in with us for 10 minutes. We ordered immediately as we had already studied the menus in depth. Our drinks were brought to us pretty quickly, though they brought my husband the wrong type of beer. When informed of this the waitress did not say a word but merely turned around and walked away from the table. She did bring the correct beer order, again without a word.
Thirty five minutes later we had to complain to the hostess that we had neither seen our waitress nor received anything to eat. Again, it was not crowded as it was a Monday night. Additionally, there were several waitresses standing around talking with somebody at another table. Even so, our waitress was nowhere to be seen.
After complaining to the hostess, our food was finally brought out. It clearly had been sitting for quite some time. The fries were cold and soggy, my son’s burger looks like a hockey puck, and my nephew’s grilled cheese was completely congealed.
The waitress did not ask our meal was. The hostess did come over to check in with us and we were honest with her. She told us it was a new waitress and that they should have had her working with someone else. Clearly this was a management issue since, as I mentioned before, there were several waitresses standing around talking to a friend at another table.
Much to their credit, the restaurant completely comped our meal. This is the first time in my life that I have not left a tip for a waitress. I would say that I feel bad for her, but she made no attempt to apologize or even explain what happened.

I absolutely love the tortilla burger. Everything else is okay, but the tortilla burger is the star of the menu.
The only problem when the wife and I visit and she gets a tortilla burger is that it is invariably not well-​done. Often still pink. We came up with the idea to have the entire burger brought to the table piecemeal and build it once it’s confirmed that the burger is well done enough.
That aside, Kaya is an amazing waitress there and she always takes great care of us.

The food and service was very good. I had the fish tacos (minus the cilantro). They were delicious! I have eaten them at 3 other restaurants in the Pittsburgh area, and these were by far the best. My husband ordered the sirloin steak, and he raved about the quality. Much better than steaks at the chain restaurants. We found this to be a very good value.

The experience all revolved around the terrible and unenthusiastic service provided to us by our server named «Trish». She was very bad at her job; we were in a group of 5 which seemed to overwhelm her. After we placed our orders I realized I forgot a detail I wanted added to our burger, when I called «Trish» over she seemed very displeased that she had to «find her manager and change the order» which shouldn’t be that big of a deal, coming from someone who works in a restaurant. Then after she did that she came back and informed the whole table «because I had to change HIS order, the rest of your food will be delayed ¹⁰⁄₁₅ minutes». Which was not great to hear, but it didn’t really work out that way anyways. My burger wasn’t that great, the grilled onions were cut too large and it was just all around an average burger. Then when it came to checking out, it took way too long. What should’ve been an hour meal took two hours. The only good thing about it was the free cookies. Poor service by Trish made it a pretty crappy experience.

I have a love/​hate with M & E’s (our code word so the kiddo’s don’t know what we’re talking about). The kids love the gummy worms and the ice cream bar. I love… nothing really. I struggle each time we go to find something that works for a paleo-​leaning, MSG-​sensitive eater. Sometimes the service is great, sometimes it is abysmal, and it’s usually OK, but if my kids didn’t love it we’d never go back.

My family and I like this place. The servers are good even when they are busy. A few issues with the meal, but they were corrected quickly. Great place to go for a quick bite with the family.

This place has gone sooo downhill! No wonder there was hardly a soul in the place at lunch hour! Today is my birthday and I could go anywhere I wanted. I felt like a good salad and some french onion soup. Their soup was always my favorite. Now it is JUST ok… But I got the Santa Fe salad and it was horrible. Dried out, tough, gross, tiny bits of chicken (like 4)…lettuce and tomato and cheese. What about this is Santa Fe? Regular ranch dressing with it. The bland gross tortilla strips on top don’t have any seasoning on them. They are like cardboard. No black beans or corn or chipotle dressing… nothing. Horrible meal. Such a shame! Won’t go back and I am sure they will be closing their doors soon.

Instead of a long drawn out review, let’s keep it pithy.
While the food is normally mediocre, my last experience was worse. The black bean burger with a wheat bun was dry-​on-​dry-​on-​dry. The take-​out order was screwed up, and it took twice as long as they said it would take.
I see no reason to continue to put money into this place.

I haven’t lived in Pittsburgh for over 3 years but I still crave Max & Erma’s Tortilla Soup so on my recent trip home I had to have it, and it was just as good, if not better, than I remembered.
Their tortilla soup is different than most — more on the creamy, cheesy side, and definitely has a kick to it. Unbelievable.
All I got was their soup so this review is based purely on it. But I remember their food always being decent, esp their homemade choc, chip cookies.