Max’s Diner & Bar

wasnt what i thought

Max’s Diner and Bar is located in the City Center in Downtown Oakland. I have walked by on my way to and from work, but never had the chance to dine there. Recently a co-​worker had her retirement celebration here. It was sit-​down event with various appetizer platters consisting of Caesar chicken wraps, giant nachos, fried mozzarella sticks, fried zucchini sticks, and veggie platter.
The food was average, nothing that was great or memorable. Maybe I’ll give Max’s another try and come in again for a regular item on the menu.

Ehh, food is bland, dark atmosphere, not the fastest service, expensive, four dollar coffee and sodas. I will never be back. Plenty of other places for good food in the area.

Sad. I ordered the barbecue pork stuffed potato. What I got was two frozen deep fried «potato skins» topped with powdered/​reconstituted potato substance with pork in bbq sauce that could have come from a can. Also, the «scallions» were diced red onion, which is likely the only thing on the plate that was perishable produce. For $ 13, you’d think that they could at least use a real potato. It isn’t as if potatoes are expensive or go bad quickly.
Also, poor service from unhappy waitstaff.

The food is ok, but overpriced. The service, however, is horrendous. I’ve never had a good experience. Whatever you do, don’t order takeout online. Apparently, the online orders come through on a fax machine (!) which they don’t appear to check. When they finally get around to it, they have to input the order to their system manually.
I just spent over an hour waiting for my $ 22 salad. The woman in line ahead of me ended up canceling her order after her hour-​plus wait. The attitude of the staff seems to be that this business as usual. Never again.

So-​so food to be tolerated when business meeting in the area is necessitated. Need I say more?

Mediocre food, below Mediocre service. Every time I go I tell myself I won’t go back but every now & then I end up stopping in. I met the manager and she has a very off putting attitude, it helped me understand why the staff is so blah.
Idk, this place just leaves a lot to be desired.

Got my Angus Beef Sliders on with cranberry and sweet hot mustard with a side of fries. Yummmm

This review is for a rehearsal dinner I had here. It’s really hard to find a place that can host 70 – 80 guests on a Friday night and not completely break the bank. I was so happy when I discovered that Max’s would be able to host a private dinner for us, and work with our budget. They were also extremely accommodating to the food allergies that some of my guests had. Amanda not only answered all my questions as I planned the dinner, she was there the night of to make sure everything ran smoothly.

I work so close to this place that I can hear happy hour if the office windows are open. This is the go-​to place for company celebratory lunches, and even a couple of ‘drinks after work’ events.
Although I have not attended for drinks and cannot speak for the variety of booze available, I’ve had lunch here probably a dozen times. With each visit, I become more disappointed in the food. What would have been a five star review the first time has now dropped to the point that I am pushing to get our company to hit up Crossburger for team lunches and ditch this overpriced, overhyped, underwhelming eatery.
Not only have the prices increased quite a bit, the quality of the food has tanked, and after being told multiple times with half a dozen different menu items that they ‘no longer serve that’, I wonder why the «updated» menu continues to offer such an array.
The sweet potato fries were super delicious, but they don’t offer them now. No pepper jack (not on menu anymore) or dill havarti cheese (still on menu) for the burgers. No roma pasta (still on menu). The fries are uninspired, the potato salad is flavorless, why the hell would I want to spend $ 20 on lunch to get potato chips, and the coleslaw could come from Popeye’s around the corner for all I can tell — bleh.
Today’s lunch was the final straw, for me. After trying to order two other entrees from the most recent menu, I settled, again, on the turkey burger. The turkey burger was once my favorite thing ever, and it is actually the ONLY entrée I have ever successfully been able to get out of these guys! Every other entrée I have tried to order is «not available» or «temporarily out» (to never return). The turkey burger has now declined so far in quality I am not entirely sure it is actual turkey anymore. Maybe tofurkey?
Dry and flavorless patty meets totally dry bun, wilted butter lettuce, oily cheese of indistinguishable type, overwhelming onion, and they forgot the bacon AND the avocado.
The fried zucchini spears were okay, once I drowned them in the runny ranch sauce they come with.

Max’s is a place all of my co-​workers go to for after work libations… they are a good place to go for lunch and the staff have always been friendly and cool. Now my reason for the 3 stars is this… I ordered a glass of wine which had the previous patrons lipstick on it. Not cool… but what I will say, our bartender was quick to fix it and make another glass of wine which kept them at 3 stars. I appreciate the effort and care to make sure I was satisfied. I will definitely come again not because they fixed me another glass of wine but because of the good food… good service and kind staff!!!

Do yourself a favor and DO NOT go to Max’s in Oakland City Center, what a horrible place!!!
I literally just went there for lunch with a co-​worker and we were pretty much the first ones in there. We waited about 45 minutes for our food (a chicken caesar wrap and a veggie wrap), shouldn’t take too long right, nope took 45 minutes and when it got to the table the french fries (substituted in for both meals rather than salad on salad (also brilliant management call there)) were basically a «day old,» they either were cooked at like 9am and served for lunch under a heat lamp, just plain horrible. Now on the caesar wrap (my meal) how can you mess this up? Literally, HOW? I mean the chicken was cold and dry, which I also think they cooked probably at like 10am, let’s give them the benefit on that one, and literally when I looked at it the whole thing basically fell apart all over the plate and I was done with that meal rather fast. I told the bus boy he could take it away and he inquired why so I told him and our waitress came over and offered to make me a new one and you know what at that point there was no way that was going to happen so I just asked her to take it off the tab, which she did, but at snails pace. I mean wouldn’t you have the manager come up to the table too and apologize or something, oh wait that’s what a real establishment does…
Long story, but beware you will be wasting your time and your money, it’s just horrible!!! Do yourself a favor and go somewhere, anywhere else because you will for sure leave disappointed and probably never go back like me.
Also, the waiter there is a bit to gung-​ho when making recommendations, which is always the same thing «how about a couple chili cheese burgers and milk shakes», I’m sure my vegetarian friend loves that every time…
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!

I’ve mostly enjoyed going to any Max’s Diner, since the food is pretty good and their portions are always filling. This location is situated inside the City Center, next to the 12^th Street BART Station. Went here the other day for lunch and ordered the burger, while my son ordered the bacon cheeseburger. Both burgers were cooked properly and the steak fries were solid, as usual.
However, service was very slow and we had to ask for refills of waters and soda’s more than a few times. It also took awhile to get silverware for one of my friends and another friend had to ask for Ranch dressing several times before he received it. We were a bit envious, since a couple of other tables had a waiter who seemed «on point’ and very attentive to his guests.

Chose Max’s because usually food is good. Today, my potato salad had no flavor. My friend asked for 3 things and was told they ran out. The restaurant was empty. I enjoy the Max’s in Burlingame. My cheesecake had no toppings i.e. Strawberry sauce. Odd. May consider going elsewhere when I’m in this area. Seems to have gone downhill.

Angela is the
she knows me and co-​workers order soon as she see us! Her customer skills are Fabulous if your in the area you will not be disappointed! Potato wedges buffalo wings need I say more

Me and a couple of my co-​workers had lunch there today. Despite the weather we had a good time. Angela was out waitress. She was very nice and accommodating to our needs. The potato wedges were great. We will definitely be back again.

My husband and I just ate here last night for his company’s annual (late) holiday party), and the food was excellent!
First, they put some appetizers out. There was a vegetable plate with sliced veggies, tomatoes, and radishes, and a cheese and crackers plate. Pretty standard. They also had a large bowl of puffed seasoned tortilla chips (not sure the seasoning flavor), which were delicious, and some very wonderful, chunky guacamole. I’ll assume the guacamole was home-​made, but I didn’t ask, sorry. It was delicious, though!
Then, the dinners came. We pre-​selected our entrees off a list we were given with teh RSVP request. I have checked their website, and I do not see the exact menu items we were given on their normal menu, so I guess these were special catering selections, but I’m sure anything on their menu similar to what I describe below will be just as delicious!
One of us ordered the salmon entrée. Here’s how it was described:
Pan Seared Salmon seasoned with salt and pepper then pan seared.
Served over quinoa sautéed with arugula, red peppers, cippolini onions, mushrooms, and Dijon vinaigrette.
The other ordered the skirt steak entrée:
Roasted Garlic Skirt Steak charbroiled and served with onion strings and fries topped with roasted garlic.
We split and shared each of the dinners. They were both so delicious! They were so delicious that we each tried to decide which we liked the best so that we could end eating with that item. The skirt steak was SO tender. I am very fussy about steaks, and I was so impressed with this. At first, I thought the steak was difficult to cut, so I was worried it would be tough, but quite the contrary! It was so so tender. I also thought at first that the salmon was overcooked, but it definitely was not. I try as much as possible to order my salmon cooked «rare». This was just right. It wasn’t rare, but it definitely wasn’t overcooked. So, I am primarily giving this place 4 stars for the food quality.

Very so so bar. My company went here during the gas leak evactuatioon on Thursday. The place is tidy and has a fancy bar, but the beer selection tops out at Firestone IPA, which is middling at best. The rest of the beers are the usual nonsense you’ll find at a dive bar, or anywhere that doesn’t know better.
I didn’t look at the menu, but there was a great chocolate covered coconut thing ordered by someone else, that looked pretty good (not vegan).
Probably not somewhere I’d return to in a hurry, since there are so many great bars in the area, but not somewhere I’d actively avoid either, unless I was looking for good beer (which I often am).

The bartender was really friendly and he actually made a good bloody Mary however we have been here for 45 minutes and have little to no service. I have gone up to the bar three times to check on my food and my check and I have gotten a result so this is quite frustrating. We walked in after a conference and asked if we could sit outside and the waitress rolled her eyes and said yes and walked away and never helped us again. A busboy Brought water 20 minutes later but now it has been 45 minutes and we have no word on our food. The presentation is nice but the service is lacking. We all now have to take it to go.
Almost an hour and still no food. The bartender did the best he could to help. So, grateful for that at least.

WHY WE WENT HERE:
— lunch with my parents
— my mom is a sit-​down-​enjoy-​your-​food type of person vs. getting something on the go
THE LOOK (FROM THE OUTSIDE):
— tucked into a corner in the food plaza
— can be easily overlooked (all the crowds go to Popeye’s, Panda Express, and Jamba Juice)
THE LOOK (FROM THE INSIDE):
— dead; because it is downtown in a place where people need a quick bite to eat (it’s next to office buildings), people don’t have time for a sit-​down meal
— my parents and I (amongst maybe 2 – 3 other tables at most) were the only patrons in the restaurant
— it was so dead that I noticed the workers on their phones
— the smell was… off; certain parts of the restaurant made me feel like I was nearby a swimming pool
THE MENU:
— bites and noshes
— flatbreads
— stuffed potatoes
— big bold salads
— Max’s own soups
— hand-​smashed burgers
— hot off the grill
— wraps
— classic deli sandwiches
— entrees
WHAT I ORDERED:
— Max’s sliders
THE TASTE:
— light
— fresh
— tasty
CUSTOMER SERVICE:
— I don’t know if it was because it was so slow but I figured the customer service would be a lot faster because there was barely anyone inside
— our server wasn’t as attentive as I would’ve liked
— it took forever and a day for us to get water/​drink refills, for us to get the check, and for her to process the payment