Max’s Place

Great dive bar! Thoroughly enjoyed talking with the owner. Great juke box and good patronage!

I live in the neighborhood and am so happy I found this bar. The staff is great, especially Cindy the manager, and the drinks are cheap. They have free Wi-​Fi for customers and accept debit cards now as well.

This was an awesome dive Bar very small crowd but the family atmosphere in here is awesome I suggest you come and check it out a lot of old fashioned things happen there that you really just don’t see anymore for instance they cook every holiday and give food to the customers they have Wednesday what they call dollar beer day you get a glass of old style for a dollar or a PBR you can also get a bucket on Thursday for $ 10 Sunday they give free hot dogs you do not find places that do this anymore loved it here will come back

This place was a ton of fun. The drinks were cheap, the bar was almost empty and there were decent choices on the juke box. The atmosphere was nice and divey complete with a man asleep at the bar.

There are plenty of dives in Chicago: good, bad; clean or sterile, dirty or disgusting – these states sometimes cultivated, even affected, and sometimes present through decades of casual, comfortable weather and wear – while some cater to specific crowds, geographic or demographic, and some posit a dive status quite obviously and entirely curated for maximum hipness.
Max’s is not like most dives in Chicago. Max’s is like the hole-​in-​larger-​hole Irish-​styled pub off the main square in Indianola, Iowa, where a «dive» is just «the bar» and has none of the special cachet often attached to such establishments in our city.*
None of this is, by any means, meant to disparage the Place: Max’s is cool, and different, and seemingly of an endangered species in the ecology of Chicago dive-​bars.
It’s also an eminently supportable venture: it’s been owned and operated by the same family for more than thirty-​five years, and the family boasts – with no pretensions, but with an eye towards civic mythology– that they purchased their beautiful oaken bar from some haunt once owned and frequented by Al Capone. They’ll tell you about the lean years, the temporal cross-​sections of the neighborhood, the «family» (whether kith or kin) that has attached itself to the place over time, and they’ll even tell you that you should just fork-​over the additional fifty-​cents for the shot of Knob Creek (100 proof), since their well-​whiskey is Jack Daniels (80 proof) for $ 4.00 and they know they shouldn’t be selling Knob for that cheap but their mother just doesn’t want to change her prices.
And if you’re real nice, and it’s real cold, you might even find yourself drinking a shot – care of the gracious and garrulous proprietress – on the house.
* [Note: Here, and throughout, I intend as little colonial-​esque fetishization of alterity as possible (which naturally doesn’t mean I can escape it). Max’s Place is a bit difficult to localize in pat and easy terms; it defies quick description even despite – and perhaps because of – the commonalities it has with a lot of places across the country (but not with a lot of places in this, or similar, cities). I hesitate to deploy the term «authenticity” – fraught and appropriated as it has become: a new-​ish badge, belying a certain sort of benightedness, and nowadays so very threadbare – so I simply won’t: as I said, Max’s is cool and different and in the best sense makes one feel a bit like they’ve stepped through the wardrobe.]

Unilocaling is all about expectations right??? Well the previous reviews of this place are accurate by-​and-​large. A tight space bar with a variety of «type» of patron. Sneak in this dive if you are looking to have a drink and wath a little tv or even read a book.
Max’ has a neighborhood bar feel and what appeared to be several regulars. They were not busy so the service was prompt and friendly. I only stuck around for one drink, but this place would be an appropriate after work drop in.
They don’t serve food that I noticed but did have a few snacks for sale… In lieu of hot food, the snack pile could use some upgrading.

$ 1 Old Style? Great service? Clean dive? Yes please! FYI Cash only, but the bartender didn’t complain (actually had an awesome wise crack) when he gave me $ 19 change for a $ 20.
I’ll be back if I’m in the neighborhood.

It was a lot better before people started pumping money into the jukebox. After that everyone started yelling at each other in Spanish and getting roughty. The beer was super cheap. Would not accept a credit card.

Yee Haw! They have both kinds of music here, Country and Western! Also, Busch and Old Style on tap. Does it get any better?
A rather raucous crowd of lively and interesting locals. It is a mix of the spill off from Carol’s Pub that either don’t want to pay the cover charge at Carol’s or are in the mood for Western if the band at Carol’s is playing Country…
A great little neighborhood dive in the little known about ‘country’ part of Chicago. Also one of the few bars left in the city that still has Old Style on tap.
It is a certified ‘tough’ dive due to my first time in here a street hawker was trying to sell sweatshirts and some of the patrons ran him out screaming «Get out of here with your stolen sh*t!» I love this place and am so glad I live so close to it!
Go Here!

They still have cheap beer.
They moved the juke box.
Still the best dive I’ve been to. Ever.

Charismatic dive bar located in just the right spot to stop you having to go to Carol’s. The beer is possibly too cheap. The bar tenders are always friendly and cheerful. When I last visited, Friday at 8pm, the bar tender shouted at all the locals to «wake up!». Some of them did indeed wake up for a moment, and the rest of us giggled quietly. It’s a relaxing, homey place to drink cheap beer. Just like a dive bar should be.

After living near this place for over a year and a half, I finally wandered in just to check it out, and it’s definitely become my favorite bar in the area. I dislike Carol’s, and Nick’s on Wilson is a bit too far to walk if I just want to get out of the house in the winter. However, Max’s is perfect. You walk in, the beer’s cheap, and everyone’s friendly. There’s one of those video touch-​screen game machines at the bar, which is a nice touch if you’re bored. But really, if you strike up a conversation with the people next to you, that won’t be a problem. It’s a good crowd, and certainly my favorite place to go in this neighborhood.

It’s hard to believe places like this still exist. I stopped in late one Friday night, because I had locked myself out of the house. I used to live around the corner from this joint. It’s about a half block south of Carols Pub (a real armpit of a bar that somehow has become popular with hipsters and yuppies) go figure. Max’s however, is not popular. It’s dark, dingy, smelly and mainly frequented by Townies. People come here to get away from mainstream society. It truly is, a different world. You can get smashed here for about $ 15 bucks, including tip. I highly recommend it, if you’re depressed and want to continue the cycle of depression. The perfect place to go after you just got dumped or your wife told you she was seeing someone else. If you’re in a really good mood and wanna have a great time… go somewhere else.
If you want to forget about the past and not think about the future… go to Max’s.

you want dive? you want blue collar? you want to hang with the big boys and be called ‘baby’ by the big girls?
that’s right, this is a real dive. beer on one side, stools on the other, and a bar in between. be prepared to hear a few of chicago’s common languages and rub shoulders with chicago’s common people. buy a round for your new buddies for the cost of the exact same beer at a regular bar.