The Max Retropub

FRAUDS!!!
On two occasions I visited this bar and paid my tab with my debit card. The first time they charged my card twice for the same amount which over drew my account. I thought, oh well accidents happen and settled things with my bank.
3 months later I visited this bar and again paid with my debit card again, the bar charged me the correct amount then 32 days after my last visit the bar charged my card for a different amount a second time! After checking with my friends and finding out the same thing had happened to them, I contacted my bank and the bank told me the latest charge was entered manually which means someone in the bar is probably collecting card information and charging it on their own.
I had to cancel my debit card and wait 8 days for a new one to show up. I will never return to this bar! They are fraudulent and and unprofessional, but it doesn’t seem to bother anyone who works there.
Be warned, it could happen to you.

This place is fun if you like a super casual bar with loud 80’s music, mixed drinks, and arcade games. It’s fun for what it is. The drinks are creative but usually a little too sweet for me. Ski ball is my favorite and I love playing a few rounds before heading to the next place. The Max is a fun detour on a night out but I wouldn’t stay the entire night.

Cool place! An 80/​90s themed bar in the middle of the Blue Dome District in Downtown… I don’t know how I haven’t heard of this place before. The bar had a DJ playing 80s hit songs, antiquated tube TVs were playing old MTV above the bar and Star Wars was projected on to one of the walls. The walls are lined with the best coined operated arcade games of the past including Pac-​Man, Dig Dug, Galaga, Skee Ball and many more!
Tonight there was a Block Party going on with live music and food trucks in the street outside the bar.
I bought a round consisting of three beers and a house shot which cost a total of $ 17, which seems reasonable.
This place could make any child of the 80s proud!

I was walking back to my hotel from a Drillers game and happened upon this bar. I saw arcade games from the sidewalk. Being a teen/​young adult of the 80’s, I pissed away many quarters and many an hour in video arcades. I ventured in.
This was my first experience with a «barcade.» Interesting, to be sure. Great beer selection. Many domestics, lots of crafts, something for everyone. They had $ 2 Coors Original on draft… so I was covered.
The décor of the place made me chuckle… old tv’s with 80’s shows and commercials on a loop. Tons of 80’s knick knacks on the walls: Devo, Pee Wee Herman, Terminator, ZZ Top… the list goes on. I’ve been to other retro-​themed places, but the tackiness of this place made it a little better.
I was there on a Thursday night, so it wasn’t crowded. Service was either great or lousy, depending on which of the two bartenders was helping you. One guy sucked; he couldn’t have been more «go to hell» if he tried. The other guy was great.
I got to play «Defender» for an hour, but hell, now I had beer! What more can I say? I was transported back to my days of polo shirts, tight Levi’s and Kaepa high tops with two sets of laces (on each shoe). Emerson wrote: «I covet truth; beauty is unripe childhood’s cheat. I leave it behind with the games of youth.» Well, I guess Emerson didn’t have a Defender Jones and he wasn’t being served icy cold Coors Original. Sorry, Ralph.
I returned briefly on Friday, and it was a completely different vibe. Packed asshole to belly button, really loud, almost impossible to get a beer. The restroom was a mess. Still, it could be fun if you were in the right state of mind. Some sizzle chest was hogging the Defender, so I went with Tron.
I waffled between 3 stars and 4. Three because of the one crappy bartender, 4 for the concept and Coors. I went with a 4.

Great atmosphere, with a wide selection of beer and the brunch on the Weekends are great from open till close 7 different juices and a make-​your-​own bloody mary bar. From the all «all out in the open» feel and setup from when you walk in, to the bar, tables, and mugs or glasses you drink from to the open stage and garage doors, that do open, to the food that fills you up and leaves you full and continent. This tulsa legend is a must for anybody. oh and they have a $ 12 beer mug that is an exact liter of beer, any choice you want.

a fun place to stop by for a drink, maybe 2. Wouldn’t plan a night around visiting. We usually swing by for a jell-​o shot or two then hit the road, dancing out the door on our way. Just usually a very mixed crowd. Fun for a short time!

Chill place. 90s music and arcade games. jello shots $ 2.
Not amazing but it was a good night because I went with a big group of friends

Came in here, after seeing a concert at the BOK. Place was dead, had a couple of beers and played some video games. $ 1 gets you 5 tokens.

Great retro atmosphere and arcade games. Great place to hang out with friends if you’re a gamer like me.

The Maxx is a fun chill place for a night out. 90’s theme games, drinks and music. Lots of space and I rarely have been there when it is packed. Def not a club though so don’t go with that in mind. Go to relax and chill out.

The 80s «barcade» straight out of Rocky 4.
A fantastic concept: Get a bunch of old arcade games and build a full bar around them. I felt just like Fred Savage walking in and ordered a blue slush and two shots of Patron. The place is packed with 80s memorabilia. Everything you thought you forgot about is here. All the old tvs playing VHSs is a great touch too.
The service has always been pretty good. Even when it’s really busy I haven’t had to wait too long for a drink. It’s a full bar so you can get pretty much whatever you want. You might even be able to order pizza from Joe Mamma’s next door.
The game selection is pretty decent as well. A good mix of 80s and 90s classics as well as some pretty obscure cabinets.
I’ve always had a good time here. Seems like it’s always very cold in there. Probably because I always make sure I get a slush.

The Max is a modern adult arcade bar, but the shortcomings outweighed the benefits for me.
Despite the name that would seem to be perfect for a «Saved by the Bell» bar/​restaurant, The Max is instead a gritty arcade and 80s bar for adults. Like a classic arcade, it’s a bit dark inside the Max, with a lot of subtle lighting coming from video game screens and televisions behind the bar showing 80s movies. In fact, a lot of the stuff around the bar area hearkens back to 80s stuff, including tchotchkes, dolls, and other accoutrements. When we were in, there was a special on jello shots, so we ordered a couple of those.
While I like the idea of a classic arcade bar, one of the big keys to having a place is having plenty of machines to play. The Max has a lot of machines, but about ¹⁄₃ of them aren’t working or are turned off for whatever reason, and another third of those that are working have something wrong with them. Tucked in the back, I started out playing Street Fighter II. It was set on free play, which was nice (other machines do require tokens to play) but two of the attack buttons didn’t work at all. While it doesn’t render the machine useless, it is problematic if you’re trying to pull off a combo that ends with strong punch, and the strong punch button doesn’t work at all. I ran into a similar situation with the Tron machine, except a bit more physical — the joystick was broken in half. If you held the whole thing in your hand and squeezed it together it was playable, but if you weren’t holding and pulled too much one way, the whole top of it would come off in your hand. There was also a stand-​up of Star Wars Trilogy arcade that looked fantastic, but something was seriously off with the joystick calibration, and it was impossible to aim at anything on the right side of the screen. Not every game was broken, as I still was able to play Dig Dug and Robocop, but these frustrations at the games that did work along with the number of machines that I would like to have played but were turned off or non-​functional made the whole appeal of the arcade bar generally moot, and the cache of the 80s theme (and a bathroom that was beat-​up and dingy enough that it looked just about like the one from my local skating rink when I was a child) wasn’t enough to make this as awesome as I would have wanted it to be. If these machines were in better working order, or if Burger Time was working, I probably would have thought better of the place, but all in all it seemed more of a shadow of a novelty of a real old arcade than a working concept of a place that millenials and Gen-​Xers would come and hang out to drink and have a good time.
This is the tenth of a series of ~13 reviews about a weekend getaway in Tulsa.

Oh my goodness, this place is so cool. I was in town for a work trip with co-​workers and we had to come here when we realized what it was! It has such a cool vibe and is just a really fun place for a night out with friends. We played some Pacman and Skee-​ball and I had a Ninja Turtle drink with a Pixie Stix rim. Yes, you read that right. There were also concoctions that included Pop Rocks on the rim. It was glorious. We also happened to come in on free token night so we played for free! Fun times.
I only knock it down a star because a few machines we tried weren’t working, but it was nothing major. I also feel like the themed drinks are mostly for the novelty… my drink tasted great, but didn’t taste like it had much alcohol in it. Having said that, it was only $ 5, which is really not bad at all for a novelty drink… and it had Pixie Stix in it so I was happy.

The Max has a cool, casual vibe and is a great place to play a few vids while listening to solid 80’s and 90’s tunes. The staff is friendly and if you’re there during the week it’s not busy and tokens are easy to come by.
The only thing this place is missing is a Golden Tee machine — hint, hint.

I love The Max. I do. And I really want to give this place 5 stars, BUT eh, I can’t.
The good: Video Games. 80s Music. Beer. The trifecta of awesome. I live and die for skee-​ball. I also love Burger Time more than any normal, functioning adult should.
The bad: Games are often broken. Burger Time takes my token, but nothing happens. token doesn’t come back. Wah. We are trying to play skee-​ball, but the place is too small. We are crowded in and can barely get any wind up on a throw. We are totally blocking anyone who would want to play the games directly behind us. Immediately outside the front door is a smoker’s haven, so the front of the bar also reeks of smoke.
The ugly: This place is just flat out gross. The floor is sticky, the games are sticky. There is a bench from some carnival ride that someone either spilled or puked in. It’s also dark, but this could be an advantage so that you can’t tell exactly how gross this place is. It’s uneasy trying to be in here and between the loud music and dark lights, it’s hard to really enjoy beating your friends at video games because you can’t hear or see them (Yeah, I sound old, I’m not).
I wish this was just a one-​time thing, but this is the 4^th time I’ve been here and the experience is never really that fun when it totally could be. They need a deep-​cleaning and some re-​organizing. And to get rid of the smoker’s club hanging at the door. I’ll come back here because it always seems like a good idea, but like usual, I’ll probably have 2 beers, lose half my tokens to broken machines and then leave with my tail between my legs.

I have a weakness for old-​timey things, and with a name like «Retropub,» I knew I was going to become a fan of The Max from the get-​go.
And fan I was. The Max has all my favorite kitschy things: neon lights, old arcade games, projectors playing old movies, 80s-​themed posters, etc. Coupled with a great bar staff and good, cheap drinks, I was sold.
I sucked backed a couple of rum and cokes as my friend and I played skee ball — for me, it was the first time since I was a kid, at least! Trading my dollars for tokens brought back fond memories from childhood, and I happily did so for skee ball, Pac-​Man, and some weird game called Dig Dug that I couldn’t quite figure out how to play.
The Max had exactly my preferred ambiance for bars: chill, laid-​back, good music, good drinks, divey feel with the perk of playing arcade games while having a good time.

Hadn’t heard of this place until I walked by it during the Blue Dome Art Festival. Went inside had a couple of drinks, played a few games and generally had a good time. I like the 80’s movies playing over the bar. I don’t imagine that most of the people in the bar were alive through the 80’s but they seemed to be having fun with the retro tech. Not a bad way to kill some time downtown before or after you’ve eaten.

They say sometimes the smell or an experience can ignite a memory from your childhood. The Max Retropub combines all kinds of senses to warp you back into the 80’s and 90’s instantly.
Walking in, I could tell my inner childhood come back to life. Coin operated Arcade machines, old CRT Televisions playing classic B rated movies, Posters of memorable 80’s pop culture adorning the walls and just vivid colors everywhere. Music blaring old classics and drinks named after your favorite 80’s icons.
I ordered a few drinks and they are infused with pop rocks and pixi stick dust on the outer rim of a few drinks. Drinks range from 5 – 8 dollars and they have a menu book for you to look at while you ponder what might get your juices flowing.
Any game you could think of, the Retropub has it. Although some of their machines could use some restoring as some games like NFL Blitz, the buttons stick and could seriously screw you over when you button mashing the throw button.
If I lived in Tulsa, I could see myself hanging out here often every weekend. I definitely saw a lot of couples of what looked like a good place to take someone on a first date.
Check this place out if you want a great atmosphere that will take you back in time.

The Max is a cool place! I love the Blue Dome and this is just one of the many great places there.
It’s usually a younger crowd of twenty-​somethings. The service is comparably quick and I like to get whatever is on special. It’s often weird stuff, so sometimes I strike out — but at least it’s cheap!
What makes this place different is all of the old games and the retro theme throughout. They have old TVs playing (mostly) 80s music videos. There are probably several dozen old arcade games ranging from classics to basketball. Surprisingly, almost all are in service.
Something else that is interesting is that the main room with the bar is (for all intents and purposes) standing room only; however, there is an adjacent room that’s a little quieter with lots of room to sit and talk.
This is a must-​see when you’re hitting up Blue Dome establishments. Go there late and then walk next door to Joe Momma’s for a late night slice!

When I heard this place existed I thought it was a dream.
DREAMS DO COME TRUE!
Add this bar to your list of places you take your out-​of-​town guests –I have never been anywhere like it. Retro televisions line around the bar playing classics like Saved By The Bell. And the gaming… my inner true gamer comes alive with these well preserved Pac Man and pinball machines. I am the reigning family Pac Man queen in my family –challenge me if you dare.
There is bar seating and a couple tables in the back for when you get tired of gaming. Drinks are of plenty but I usually stick with beer here.
Karaōke nights are supremely fun with a love DJ. Really, the whole area is fun in the Blue Dome District!