Maxwell St Chicago Eatery

I love Chi town food and this was definitely a representation of Chicago food. I highly recommend.

We came here for dinner since we heard it was a great Chicago style restaurant. Well it's more like fast casual eating since you order at a counter and then wait till your name is called. When we got to the register the girl looked at me I looked at her and since I was obviously not going to get a greeting after a moment of standing there I ordered. We ordered the polish, a chili dog and an order of onion rings with 2 drinks.

The polish was nothing special on a dry bun. Nothing special and nothing I couldn't do at home. It's not like anything they actually made there, just cooked or warmed up. The chili dog didn't have a lot of flavor. While the poppy see bun was steamed it was done to the point it was so wet in one side it was like I was eating bread dipped in water with a mix of hot dog and chili. Not a pleasant consistency in my mouth.

The onion rings were crispy and yet they didn't stand out.

Getting your drink can be an issue if there are kids in the restaurant like when we went. The game machines are right in the same corner with the Coke machines so you need to excuse yourself and push your way in and out.

We might come to try the deep dish to see if it is like Chicago and brings back memories of of trips to Chicago, but so far I am not impressed.

Came here one afternoon with the family and was pretty disappointed. We ordered a Chicago dog, Italian beef, cha-broiled chicken sandwich and a large 16" pizza half sausage and half cheese. The place seems family owned so I hope they can approve things here.

They told us 45 minutes for the deep dish and not nearly as long for the thin crust, but we should have waited. The pizza was EXTREMELY disappointing! It was like an old cracker with bad tasting cheese and flavorless tomato sauce with frozen sausage which had an awful after taste. Even the kids commented how bad the pizza was. I imagine the deep dish is much better, but if someone has a good item they should not try and make a quick bad item to sit beside it just to have another option on the menu. It made Chucky Cheese pizza look good.

The Chicago dog was also very disappointing. I love something about the ingredients all together and they did a bad job of making it work. The pickle did not taste good and was not cut thin as I am use to plus the tomatoes were much larger slices and overall it just tasted blah and the fries were nothing to write home about.

The chicken was nothing special at all and was simply a frozen chicken breast warmed up. I would expect they would at least put it on a grill. Not worth repeating.

The Italian beef was pretty good. The au jus was very flavorful and the meat and bread was a quality combo of flavors. My only negative here was the peppers I requested on the side tasted strange. Overall this was the highlight of the menu, but would not come here just for that and hope that they can improve on things. We were torn between this and the BBQ place next door and if I could do it again I would have been writing a review about chicken and ribs...

*** NOTE: This review is for the Italian Beef Sandwich ONLY!!! ***


The sign of a great city is a signature sandwich! Many of the food loving, culturally rich areas around the country and around the world have a sandwich they are known for:

- In Philadelphia it's the Cheesesteak
- Buffalo, NY: Beef on Weck
- Miami, FL: The Cuban
- Louisville, KY: The delicious and super rich Hot Brown
- New Orleans has two: Po' Boys & Muffulettas
- Maine: The Lobster Roll
- Barcelona, Spain: The Bikini
- Washington, DC: The Half Smoke
- Cape Town, South Africa: The Gatsby
- Barbados: The Bread & Two
- Los Angeles, CA: The French Dip
- Kansas City: Z-Man Sandwich
- Minneapolis, MN: The Juicy Lucy
- Halifax, Nova Scotia - The Donair
- Paris, France - Croque Monsieur/Madame


... and from my home town of Chicago, Illinois you have two well known city favorites: The Maxwell Street Polish and the Italian Beef Combo (heavily dipped of course). I also think hot dogs should be a third city known sandwich, but New Yorkers think they have the title. Pffft... whatev's! Chicago dogs with Vienna brand beef are what dreams are made of!!!


Aside from the cool decor where they have a multi-cade video game machine that lets you play old arcade classic for FREE... the interior is bright, attractive and full of Chicago memorabilia. My favorite was the can of Jay's potato chips! Any Chicagoan knows Jay's potato chips are the best in the world and just seeing the logo brought back great memories!


But I digress, back to the beef. The Italian Beef combo here is just as good as the sandwiches I grew up loving @ Al's Beef and Mr. Beef in downtown Chicago. The Italian Beef combo adds Italian sausage to the shredded beef for double meat goodness! If you want to order it like a true Chicagoan, ADD peppers and be sure to have your sandwich dipped in the au jus. Yes this will make your bread soggy, but that's the point! Chicagoans love soggy Italian Beef bread. I personally love it SUPER soggy and instead of dipping it, I simply say "drown that sucker! Hold it under til it can't breath and then dip it again."


FINAL THOUGHTS

If I'm being honest, I would not give them 5 stars based on the other items I tried, which include the patty melt burger (3.5 stars) and the thin crust pizza (3 stars). I am a firm believer patty melts should be made with Jewish Rye bread ONLY and the bread should be loaded with caraway seed and lightly grilled using butter (mine was toasted). While the pizza looked like a typical Chicago thin pizza, the taste didn't match my lofty Chicago expectations.

However, I was told by a patron at another pizzeria (who also doesn't like the thin crust pizza here) that Maxwell Street deep dish pizza is TO DIE 4! So I will be back, hungry for the chance to try that deep dish he says tastes similar to Lou Malnati's (one of the best deep dish pizzerias in Chicago). IF that is true, not only will these 5 stars stand firm despite my dislike for some of the other items... I may also need yelp to add a 6th star! Why? Because a pizza in Georgia that tastes as good as Malnati's will regress me to my youth, cause me to curl up in a fetal position while sucking my thumb in a corner of the restaurant asking for my mommy!

In the mean time, come for the Italian Beef. IT IS WITHOUT A DOUBT THE REAL DEAL!



PS - The lady taking my order asked if I wanted cheese on my beef. I almost gave her the stank eye! Why? I've never added cheese to this culinary masterpiece! Seems wrong, like adding ketchup to a hot dog (which as all Chicagoans know is not acceptable). That's like adding cheese wiz to a cheesesteak! Mustard, relish, tomato and/or pickle slice, peppers or even sauerkraut on a Chicago dog... but NEVER ketchup! Anyways, I do plan to go outside the box next visit and try my beef with cheese. It will be a first!

Visited this restaurant again. Last two recent visits were so good. This time we tried their deep dish pizza (call ahead, because it takes 45-55 minute to make and bake). My husband and I are not familiar with the "real deal" Chicago deep dish pizza, but nonetheless, when we got our pizza, we really liked it (10" w/sausage and black olives...it was plenty for two, with a couple slices leftover to take home)! It was not thick or heavy with the dough or bread. It was a really good, juicy pizza with the right amount of everything on it.

Our next visit will be a challenge with deciding on whether to have their Italian beef dip sandwich with really good crunchy fries, deep dish or thin crust pizza.

Love this place! If you've never tried a deep dish pizza. This is the place to give it a try!

Update: came here last night for the thin Cracker like pizza with sausages and mushrooms! Yummy good! Food is consistently good!

Wife had the tuna melt which was ok and nothing to write home about. It was a fairly large sandwich and she did take half of it home.
I had the chili dog. At $4 I think it should have been better. They did not use shredded cheddar, they used liquid cheese for both the chili dog and the chili cheese fries. We are not big fans of liquid cheese.
The chili cheese were ok.
The bill was $23 for those items plus 2 drinks.
Maybe we will go back and try the pizza at some point.

I am an absolute fool for going back the 3rd time and giving them any of my money again!!!

Every once in a while I miss home and just want some GOOD Chicago Thin Crust Pizza. I didn't want to drive too far, so I decided to get pizza from Maxwell St. - even though I swore not to come back - i DID, and what a mistake.

Like they promised, it took about 20-30 mins after ordering. From the first bite in the car, there was something wrong. I believe that I have a real discerning palate and to me there was a lingering aftertaste from the crust. That aftertaste I was familiar with - it was PRESERVATIVES. Their thin crust is not made fresh there. After calling and asking if their crusts were fresh, the manager/owner said "I make the dough fresh daily" He might....but definitely not for the thin crust. Check out the pictures that I posted to prove what I am saying.

Fresh dough has a bubbly and uneven quality to it throughout. This dough had none. If you look at the inner edges of the pizza crust (see pic), they are the exact same thickness throughout! That means the dough went through some kind of rolling machine to flatten it out. And when you look at the outer edges (see pic) they are darker than the rest of the edge, and that means it was cut to the perfect circular roundness that it is. Sorry dude. But pardon my french, but that's a bunch of BS you're doling out to say that you "make dough daily" - yes, maybe for the deep dish, but not the thin crust. The fact that you used a very deceptive way to make me believe that all your crusts are fresh, makes me believe you would easily lie about other things.

EVEN IF I WANTED TO PUT THE CRUST ASIDE AND ENJOY THE REST OF THE PIZZA, I COULDN'T! A true Chicago pizza uses the best of ingredients: flavorful Italian sausage, rich tomato pizza sauce, and even Buffalo mozzarella cheese. But this pizza had none - bland, Bland, and DOUBLE BLAND.

Suffice it to say that if you want an authentic Chicago experience and pizzas with fresh thrown crusts, look at places closer to the city or even at Rosati's pizza on exit 13 in Cumming.

If the owner tells you that it is fresh dough in the thin crust pizzas, have him show you his process step by step to confirm that yours will be done right. An owner that is proud of what they do will be more than happy to oblige. But with my armchair CSI skills, I conclude that the pizza that I got was not any better (and 3x more expensive) than a frozen pizza you'd find at Walmart.

I PROMISE I WILL NEVER GO BACK HERE AGAIN. AND I WILL STEER PEOPLE CLEAR FROM HERE. Yes I am venting, but, all I wanted was a good Chicago pizza tonight. :(

I have to assume by the reviews on this establishment none of these people have been to chicago or a real chicago eatery locally.

Maybe you will get lucky and think Maxwell St. Is the address and not name thus you wont be able to find this place and save yojrself the trip, money and time.

Went today and they missed on every level, cold french fries, stale bread on the chicago beef which should just be said to be roast beef, cheeseburger was ehh at best and chicken sandwhich was flavorless.

All in all with the number of great Chicago style eateries around dont waste your time..

Someone mentioned they dont call it fast food but pointed out you wait in line, get your own utensils and condiments and drinks finally food arrives on plastic tray like at McDonalds so yes its over priced fast food done slowly.

Heard good things about this place from friends. Took the trip down today and I must say I was impressed. I came hungry. Ordered an Italian beef, Chicago dog and a cheese and sausage pizza(thin crust of course). The beef was excellent! Great flavor with peppers on a hard roll. The Dog was just what a Chicago Dog should be. Steamed dog and poppyseed bun with mustard, relish, pickle, tomatoes and of course celery salt. I don't do onions. The pizza was pretty darn good. Thin crust, cut in squares with plenty of sausage, cheese and sauce. Also the guy that took care if us was friendly, fuming and fast. Nice small place, order at the counter and they bring the food to you. Surprised the had Coke instead of Pepsi, but no worries there. Great place to go for authentic Chicago staples.

Stopped by again. This time had my beef dipped. OH MAN it was killer! I was going to take a pizza home(40 minute drive) and the owner talked me into a fresh pie that I could cook in the oven. Glad I took his recommendation. Cooked it later that night and it came out great. The grease from the sausage, made everything excellent. Other folks have complained about the thin crust, but that's what I was used to back in Chicago. All the local places made a nice thin crust. Whether it's made in house or not, it's still good. Pizza without too much dough is real southside Chicago pizza. Also others have mentioned price, it's not cheap, but there is at least 1/2 pound of beef on a sandwich. Have you priced roast beef?

Still sticking with my 5 stars, good job guys!

I have to say I'm rather disappointed in the Chicago deep dish pizza. I think they need to call it extra thick crust pizza with a few toppings. I've been to Chicago, I've had deep dish pizza. You have to eat it with a knife and fork. This pizza I could pick up with my hands. There's no layers of ingredients, just a think slab of doughy bread and the same toppings you would find on a thin crust pizza. Don't waste your money on the "Chicago style pizza", just order a thin crust and go to Costco and get one of their deep dish pizzas.