Maxie's — Restaurant in Milwaukee

We were celebrating our daughter's college graduation day on Saturday, May 19th and decided to do a family (4 adults) dinner at Maxie's. I chose Maxie's based on the outstanding reviews it had for southern, barbeque, seafood. This was our first visit to the restaurant and we were expecting awesome food and a good dining experience to celebrate the occasion.

The quality of service we received was outstanding and I would say that it exceeded our expectation on all counts. Unfortunately, the dinner experience was bad and it ruined our evening and celebration.

I ordered the Pecan Crusted Trout Filet and it was tasty and thought it met my expectation for good quality food.

My wife ordered the BBQ Memphis Baby Back ribs (full rack). The ribs were overcooked - hard and burnt. Other than 2-3 pieces that we picked, the rest were not edible. This dish was ordered with sauce on the side, so I am not sure if it was our mistake for changing the original menu and ordering the ribs without the sauce which caused the issue.

My daughter got the seafood Jambalaya and found it dry and tasteless. There was hardly any flavor or taste to this dish. A couple of us tasted the dish, and we all had similar feedback.

My son ordered the beer braised pork cheeks and he said the dish was OK, but it was not tasty as he has had at other places.

We do family dinners occasionally (once a month) and understand that things can go wrong at times and no one is perfect. At this time though, something did not feel right with 3 of the 4 dishes that we ordered not seeming right and it would not be an exaggeration to say that couple of them were not edible. Not to mention this ruined the dinner experience for us and the celebration of our daughters graduation day. The family dinner for 4 with tips came out to $120 and I would expect a reasonably good dining experience and quality of food at this price level.

I am not sure why this place is getting such great reviews to be honest. Based on my experience and quality of food that was served, I would consider this place to be below average compared to similar restaurants in the general...

We'd been wanting to get in to Maxie's, so in order to get a reservation with only a day's notice, we decided to take an early dinner (4:15pm).

Upon arriving we were seated immediately. The restaurant had just opened, but the dinner traffic had already started, and by the time we left shortly after 5 the joint was already packed.

We ordered two drinks, a Hurricane and a Maxie's French Kiss. Both were perfect.

Quickly following the drinks was some complimentary cornbread for the table. Sweeter than most cornbread I've had, and very crumbly, but delicious.

Next up were the entrees (we skipped appetizers KNOWING we were having dessert (s).

Andrea Dexter ordered the 4 piece fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes, maple braised collard greens and homemade flakey biscuit. In her words "every portion of this meal was perfect. They have a hot vinegar at the table...make sure you use it on the chicken."

I had the Frogmore Stew, a mix of shrimp, ocean fish, mussels, and chicken chorizo with corn and onion in a light broth with toasted bread. If ANYTHING needed changing, it might be the chicken chorizo, but with that said...I didn't leave any on my plate.

Dessert posed a challenge: what to choose?

We opted not to choose, and instead to order one dessert for the table, and one to go.

First up was the Bananas Foster Bread Pudding. ANOTHER flawless victory for Maxie's. Perfect texture, great taste, not too sweet, and with some salted nuts to balance it all out.

Second Dessert was had hours later, and was the original reason we had chosen Maxie's as a destination. The Peanut Butter Pie comes highly recommended, and we can see why. Most peanut butter dessert, in general, are far too peanut butter forward. This dessert, however, perfectly balances chocolate, a delicate peanut butter cream, salted candied nuts, and a crisp crust to deliver an incredible bite.

Service throughout the evening was flawless, and we could have thrown a dart at the menu and gotten something else that sounded amazing. We look forward to going back very soon, and kick ourselves for not going sooner.

Straight to the top of our...

Saturday night had reservations for a party of 8, rude hostesses told us table wasn't ready and there was a bench seat 3 people in our party sat down and the 5 others stood of course mask wearing was happening. The remarks from the rude hostess was sorry if you can't sit you need to wait outside or go sit in your car until your table is ready. So we stood outside in 15 degrees as a table was open just to the left of the hostess stand by the bar. I asked if we could sit there and wait for our table of course it was in reference to the 5 people outside and the response was its reserved. We all couldn't believe the rude behavior, it was about 20min later and the hostess 1 of 4 came outside and said your table is ready which was the table which i mentioned before that we couldn't sit at while waiting in the cold. Strike 1 was that Strike 2 comes after we place our order which 4 of us wanted Ribs she comes back 10min later and says we ran out of Ribs i'll grab you a menu please choose something else. Interesting at 730pm the place had no Ribs left since they don't open til i think 4pm. The 4 of us ordered Chicken but it wasn't what we wanted and i said to the waitress talk to your manager and see if you can bring a few desserts after dinner for the table for the miss representation of the menu and not telling the staff you are not offering that item this evening before half the party orders the same item. Service was sub par at best for a almost 400.00 dollar bill. Best response to the dessert was my manager said no if i did it for your party i would have to do it for all parties. Wow great customer service NOT, last time going here and the food wasn't as good as previous visits. One would think being a food service industry during this Covid period that the owner and management would put 110% into making sure they are on point and making sure customers continue to want to return. I'm a owner of a retail business and i would never have treated a party of 8 or anyone...