Max & Erma's — Restaurant in Greenfield Township

Just because I eat at chains doesn't mean I don't like good service.

First, my spelling and grammar are atrocious. When we arrived the hostess seemed frazzled and incompetent at reading a basic seating chart. So without exaggeration, my girlfriend showed the hostess the name she was looking for. The hostesses proceeded to ask us if we will sit outside “are you guys ok with outside. We are troopers it was nice out, sure I would like it. I specifically made the comment as long as we are not forgotten about. We go to our table we set outside. There was a family that was leaving that said good luck as we passed them. We should have left then. Our server comes Ariel; I remember her name because…. well just wait. We are greeted ask if we would like any beverages everything cool. Well, she comes back and its happy hour she reviews the special so fast the only word I understood was the pretzel. I brushed that off finally after about three times I noticed that it was all the regular menu appetizers. Ok. Nachos, she takes the order brings us silverware and plates, (silverware dirty) and then gone. *Note, our drinks were both empty when she took our order and we are outside because we were asked. Nachos come (nachos are the bomb), she noticed finally our drinks were empty. THANK YOU. She refills the beverages and starts cleaning the dirty table from the family when we were seated she takes the ketchup and places on our table and states “sorry we don’t really have our patio buckets yet so we just take things from where we can.” Ok. I have no clue what she is talking about unless you keep ketchup in a bucket regardless I have no clue. Four other servers come out and start moving patio furniture, and if you are reading this review. I challenge to listening to iron patio furniture drag across concrete. ALL OF IT!!! While talking about their lives and people that work there which is how I found out about a party of 7 that requested Melissa but, who wanted to be seated in Ariel’s area and that Ariel was not ok with it. Well then aerial comes outside and gets our order we both get the 3-course salad burger and cookie x2 she asks me how I want mine I said Medium she doesn’t ask my girlfriend. Goes inside refills our beverages and comes back out bypassing us and then goes over and talks to the other four saying if the party of 7 requests Melissa to tell her. That was it we didn’t see her again for about 10-12 minutes no beverages again. The place was not that busy yet it was about four. So to 10-12 minutes with empty beverages. The salad comes and because she never brought me clean silverware I just ask for a box she gave me a mean look. She said no problem. I don’t mean to be needy but I didn’t want to tell her twice about dirty silverware. Burgers: comes she takes the nachos away ask us again what cookie we wanted, we tell her we eat the not so bottomless fries because unless you ask they don’t bring. I didn’t want to make her any angrier at us than what she was. Well here comes the party of 7. The hostess refills our beverages because we asked. Dying we drink those down. Her comes aerial to the party of 7 table. THIS IS THE WHOLE REASON I AM WRITING THIS REVIEW, the first thing out of aerial’s mouth to them was a lie “I know I am not your regular server but she’s not here until later and I’ll try to take just as good as care of you” I know this is a lie because I saw Melissa’s name on the seating chart and Melissa comes out to talk to them later. She stops by on the way to get their drinks and ask if we need boxes and brings us our cookie and boxes and check at this point I’m not four bites into my cheeseburger so we feel rushed. We paid, boxed up our...

We arrived here 45 minutes prior to closing time on a Friday night (they close at 9pm!). We were immediately sat but waited for a long time for anyone to come greet us and take our order. I can tell you that any customers that showed up after 8:30 were treated rather rudely, and turned away by the young guy at the host desk (we were at the first table next to the host desk). The girl working there seemed to leave it up to him to talk to the later customers.

Our waitress finally came and took our drinks but said she would come back and grab our dinner order. By the time she came back with drinks, if was only 35 minutes to closing. She took our order which was a pick two and then the chicken dinner with onion rings and a side salad. Food FINALLY came at 8:55 (40 minutes after being sat). My side salad came out with the food, not out first!! I would have loved to had asked for my salad earlier along with drink refills, but she never came back until the food was all ready. Never have I been somewhere that doesn't bring the side salad out first.

Because of the time (as they were closing at the point) we had to scarf our food down so fast (especially me since I had to eat the salad too). Neither of us live local as we were there for a prior event, so we couldn't get to-go boxes. The onions rings that I got were terrible but the chicken and salad were both good. The chicken salad sandwich was also okay, I was told. We did eventually get drink refills because WE asked for them with our empty glasses when our food came.

We felt bad being there after closing (we ate in about 20 minutes) but it was on them for taking so long to wait on us and get us food/drinks. Our waitress left a lot to be desired and messed up both of us during the check out process. I asked for the mushrooms to be left off the chicken and she charged me .99 cents for it!! When asked, that is the price to ADD mushroom. I didn't add them, I told them no mushrooms when they already came on my meal. So, I shorted her tip $1 for the cost of mushrooms that were not there. Then my cousin gave her cash and the waitress only brought back her change in bills (did not get her the coins that were owned to her back). She was in the bathroom when it came back, so could not address it with the waitress. The missing coins were almost a dollar worth, so she also shorted her $1 on her tip. I am rarely in Lancaster, but my son does live there and I can tell you I won't be back. It is a shame as I don't know of other locations that are still open. Do better with your staff...

Overall a nice place to eat on most occasions. Dined in on 10/5/24 and we were seated immediately as there is plenty of space for guests. We each ordered the 3 course combo along with 2 mini burgers for our son. We got water as well. I upgraded my soup to a bowl instead of the normal cup (more on this later). Service for the most part was sub par. We did get our water refilled once but when our food came out, they had put ingredients on our burgers that we didn’t want and forgot our sides of mayo so we had to get help with that. Staff members weren’t able to change the tv channel to watch the OSU game. There does seem to be plenty of help and staff members that work at this location however I’m unsure as to why they have poor service and execution on preparing meals correctly. At the end of our experience we received our bill which totaled to be around $45. We were confused because we’ve eaten here in the past and it’s never been that expensive (even after inflation hit). After looking at the bill, we were charged an extra $6 to upgrade from a cup of soup to the bowl size. We asked why that was as we had never been charged that previously however we were told that’s how they were trained to ring it up. We knew it was a little extra to upgrade to the next size of soup but not for $6. It’s literally 1 extra scoop. We were told they weren’t changing the bill.

Again, not the greatest overall experience. We’ve had worst experiences other places but unfortunately we’ve noticed some changes in the previous 2-3 years as we come here once every 2-3 months. We will rethink twice...