Max’s

I am not sure this deli place deserved even one star. here you go…
1. Food. good food is what you make out of it… Oakland travelers deserve a lot more.
2 Staff. unbelievable! the staff gave us an attitude that we are nobody. I know they are busy but don’t take it on with the customers. I asked for a hot dog, they said very rude that it will take 10 mins… when I ordered a second sandwiches, they told me to shut up and they will get to it. all the staff in that restaurant needs to be replaced with somebody with a smile and keep in mind we are the customers.
3. Price. it is high for what they deliver… My wife said the subway is even better price and food. Bad. Bad …

I normally like max’s foods, but if youre expexting their full menu here, disappointment abound.
But u have to rember that this is an airport location so ovrhead costs mark up the prices.
I had the warm pastrami sandwich with potato salad.
Ut was tasty and the portion is typucal max’s. I didnt have breakfast n it was already past noon. I ate only half and ate only the meat from the 2^nd half

Best Tuna Sandwich in the East Bay! Great bread, Great Tuna, Sweet Hot Mustard Rocks, ½ sandwich is Huge, and best of all they don’t Measure every ounce served. All other annoyances aside, the food is awesome.

My wife and I shared a pre-​flight sandwich there, after not sharing any food for the previous few days, and then flew to a ‘shiva’ (a long catered sit-​in affair) with many family members, all sharing all food. My wife and I got food poisoning, and no one else did. We are certain it is because of Max’s food.

The best chicken salad sandwich I have had in years. While on the way to Las Vegas on a mid-​day flight my wife picked up a Chicken Salad Sandwich. I was very pleasantly surprised! It was large Chunk Chicken with Swiss Cheese, Tomato and Lettuce.
We liked it so much we actually picked one up when we came home for dinner that night. The second one was just as good as the first.
I grew up in a family that owned a deli. All I have to say is…
GOOD SANDWICH!

I was pleasantly surprised by the corned beef sandwich Alan and I shared on the plane. I’ve been sorely disappointed by the fare served at Max’s restaurants in recent years, but this sandwich was generous w/​o being overwhelming and the corned beef was tasty. Alan picked it up before we boarded and ate his half while I napped. When I woke up I ate my half and was pleased. The rye bread was fresh and so was the corned beef. Alan would have preferred it heated, but that’s just not gonna happen on a plane. He said the accompanying potato salad was delicious. I didn’t taste it because I wasn’t in the mood. The pickle tasted just OK. The sandwich was good and we’d do it again under similar circumstances. Call it 3.49.

I’m giving this place four stars, It probably should be 3.5, but I’m rounding up instead of down because I think this place has gotten a bum rap from other reviewers.
First, its an airport deli, that manages to be reasonable good in quality and selection. That’s worth quite a bit right there.
The meat is fresh, and good quality. Very, very, few airport sandwich places (OAK included) offer good quality meat.
The bread is good as well, so with the meat, they’ve got most of the battle won.
The sides are nothing special, but how important is that?
The service is mediocre at best, but most of the great delis you’ll find anywhere don’t have very good service anyway, so I’m not deducting for that.
The prices are not high for airport food. Remember, even a fast-​food combo meal is $ 9+ at the airport.
And the place is clean. Even around the edges and inside the deli case. That’s an important factor not to be overlooked.
If this place were in the 800 block of 7^th avenue in New York, it would be worth 2.8 stars. Here, it’s worth 3.6. Definitely a decent place.

Walked over to get a veggie sandwich, but learned upon arrival that none is available on the menu. Considering that there are over ten sandwiches on the menu, they should have resources to throw some kind of avocado, cheese sprouts, etc. into the mix. Disappointed.

Over here in the Gate 30 area of OAK, the variety of higher priced airport refreshment is actually pretty good. My son usually buys a Fenton’s Ice Cream on the way out and you’ll usually find me at Peet’s for a Cup of Joe before an early morning boarding.
Like some other reviewers, I’m often attracted to the great looking pastries at Max’s. And they actually taste pretty good. What I don’t like about Max’s is queue control. All I really want is to «grab and go», but more often than not I’m stuck behind the usually sizable short order line. And as luck has it, those food order customers slow things down even more as they spell out their multiple preferences. I reminds me of standing in a «Latte Line», when all you want is a cup of coffee — black.
Proceeding directly to the the cash register to make my order usually doesn’t help either, as staff is all taking orders or at the grill. Word to the wise: If you’re in line and your Southwest number is about to be called, go across the hall to Peet’s for your sweet roll.

I don’t know what the other people were thinking. The hot pastrami sandwich here is SO UNBELIEVABLY GOOD that I WISH I flew more often. Oh yes, I’m SAD that I can’t have a Max’s hot pastrami sandwich any old day. Makes me want to jump airport security lines. First off, on the day I discovered this gem I wasn’t even hungry and didn’t want to pay high airport prices for airport food. The hot pastrami sandwich was sitting under a heat lamp, and I thought, yuckety yuck. But after browsing around and around the airport not finding anything else I wanted to eat, I finally came back and had THE BEST HOT PASTRAMI SANDWICH EVER. I was so surprised. The sauerkraut was perfect and the bread was crunchy. Juice ran down to my elbows. It makes my mouth water to even think about that sandwich now. This sandwich is hands-​down even better than my second favorite, which is Durso’s in San Francisco.

I know airports hike up their food prices. Why else would a bottle of water cost you double it should? Knowing this, I walked around terminal 2 of Oakland airport in search of the cheapest sandwich! After checking out gordon biersch, andale, and california pizza kitchen, I end up walking back to Max’s because every sandwich in the airport is around $ 10 and the sandwich is their main menu item.
I had a similar experience to Natalie H.‘s review down below. I couldn’t hear the sandwich creator across the counter from me! Maybe she had an accent. maybe it was just loud. but I know both she and I repeated ourselves over and over! This went on for every single item: meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickle?! Gah!
My Warm Hot Pastrami Sandwich and bottle of Water may have been $ 14.25, but I was starving and I wanted a fatty sandwich to sustain me on my flight. Overall it was oozing with cheese, the standard wheat bread slices weren’t toasted, the lettuce and tomato tasted fresh, kept it classic with mayo and mustard, and the pastrami slices were thick-​hot-​juicy. As long as I get a good slab of pastrami in my sandwich I’m a happy camper. It wasn’t worth the amount they charge but if you don’t want to pay for the expensive airport food you should pack your own food and bring it in (yes, you will pass through security fine as long as it’s packed securely)!

Max’s offers ~$ 9 sandwiches that come with a little cup of coleslaw or potato salad and dill pickle spears.
I got the bacon, lettuce and tomato on toasted sourdough. I had low expectations, my sandwich exceeded them. The bacon was crispy and tasty, not too greasy, and the sourdough bread was nicely toasted. The lettuce and tomato seemed fresh, the coleslaw was a decent side and the pickle spears were crunchy and tasty. The sandwich was large and more than enough for dinner. I think having the bread toasted helped to keep it from getting soggy between purchase and eating it on my flight.
Max’s is located in the Southwest Terminal near gate 29.

I am sitting here at OAK Term 2 staring at a completely inedible corned beef sandwich. I am sure you are thinking — who in their right mind would get a corned beef sandwich at the Oakland airport, when you can’t even get a good corned beef sandwich in the Bay Area? But at some point in the distant past, I had two in a row that I would describe as passable — maybe even good by airport standards. Today, completely inedible.
Her: Would you like mayo on that?
Me: Of course not. No one should ever have mayo on a corned beef sandwich.
Her: A lot of people do.
Me: That’s a really bad sign.
So, if you were one of the people that I said to «you know, there is a surprisingly passable corned beef sandwich at the Oakland airport» please accept my apologies.
I’m going to throw this out and get a burrito at Andale. $ 10 down the drain.

By the looks of the other reviews, I’m not alone with my thoughts on Max’s.
They have beautiful looking pastries on display. I’ve tried them a couple of times… bland!
Fool me once, shame on you…
Then yesterday, I ordered a croissant breakfast sandwich with chicken apple sausage to eat on the plane. I asked to just have it wrapped in some foil instead of the big olé to-​go box. She said they didnt have boxes and besides all the eggs would fall out. HUH?
So after about 15 mins in flight, me and others break out our food and I was like WTF when I saw there were about 17 scrambled eggs on ONE sammich. How irritating and unnecessary. After I scraped all that crap off, I had some jam for the cwas-​sont and it was just fine and the sausage tasty too.
Next time, I’ll just order a croissant and sausage and call it a day…
…fool me twice, shame on me.
PS-​why are all the food places not open until 6am? The airport was jam packed @ 530 am with business travelers…

Ahhh… airport food.
In exchange for $ 11 I was given a soggy bread sandwhich with a pickle on the side. Why the extra star? It beat out the other shitty options.
It’s too bad because the regular Max’s are so much better.

For $ 10.29, I ordered the All American breakfast which consists of scrambled eggs, four pieces of bacon, hash browns and a biscuit. The eggs were good, scrambled hard which I like. The hash browns were fresh and hot. The bacon had been precooked and was just so-​so.
The portions are huge! Who wants a half a pound of scrambled eggs and a third pound of hash browns? I felt wasteful throwing away so much food, but didn’t want all it going to my waist!
The line moved promptly and the service was fine.

I had breakfast there before my flight to LA. More doesn’t mean better, people! Plus, the counter help peeps are more interested in rehashing the drama from the night before than they are in actually helping customers. I know, I know. What should I expect? It’s airport help, for crist’s sake. Well, I actually like the food and the service at the regular Max’s restaurants. I don’t think that uncle Max would appreciate his name being associated with these biatches!

what a horrific experience. you’d think that one of the SIX girls working here would realize that they are in an AIRPORT and so people are probably in a HURRY. there were only 3 people in front of me in line and 6 girls working but it took almost TWENTY minutes for my measly little turkey and cheese sandwich. my experience went something like this:
girl: «can i help the next person in line?»
me: «yes i’d like a turkey sandwich on a baguette»
girl: «a turkey what on a who?» (seriously, that is what she said)
me: «turkey sandwich on a roll or whatever, the baguette roll»
girl: «would you like mustard or mayo?»
me: «no i just want turkey, cheddar cheese and tomato. nothing else» (i’m boring)
girl: 5 minutes later…“here is your sandwich, would you like a pickle?“
me: «no thanks»
girl: «no pickle?»
me: «that’s right, no pickle»
girl: «are you sure?»
me: «yes. NO PICKLE»
girl: «ok, head on over to the register»
register girl rings me up…“that will be $ 10.98″
me: «no, i just got this sandwich, i don’t have anything else»
register girl: «yes i know, it’s $ 10.98»
me: «for just this sandwich? are you serious?»
register girl: «yes, the sandwich is $ 10.98»
me: «…ok, give me that pickle.»