Maxwell’s

Went out of business this week. We loved this place. Great Manhattans, great atmosphere and very fun food. The service was always good. Over the last 6 months there were issues but now I understand why. Obviously they were on the down swing. Oh well. Another Tacoma restaurant bites the dust.

I’ve read recently that Maxwells has hit a bit of snag, after being closed for a month for maintenance on the building. I went a few weeks ago and I could tell the staff was having a rough night getting the food out promptly. I didn’t want to give up on this place, so upon returning the other night, I was very pleasantly surprised how they had turned it around in a matter of days. With a few new staff members and some tweaks to the menu, they’re back on the upswing. I went on a Friday night, and having the live jazz band there to accompany my meal made the experience all the more enjoyable.
I got the fizzy lifting drink, a fun play on a gin fizz, with egg whites and bitters that made the cocktail pretty and delicious. You can tell the bartender, Zack, really cares about his drinks and the craft that goes into them. I got the salmon, which was cooked really well, with butternut squash couscous underneath that was to die for. For dessert, I went for the seasonal pumpkin crème brûlée, which was a divine end to the meal.
You can tell it’s been a bumpy road for this restaurant, but they’re coming back into their own. To those that claim they won’t be back, like I once did, I say to give it another shot.

This place has really gone downhill! It used to be one of my favorite places for cocktails or happy hour, but all of the good bar tenders seem to be gone, and the service was the worst! After placing our drink orders the waiter literally disappeared! I had to get up and walk around the restaurant looking for him. When I finally did find him he made some lame excuse, and had what can only be described as a very snotty attitude. The service was slow and irritating, the drinks were lame, and the food was disappointing. Would not recommend.

I am always seeing Maxwell’s on Unilocal and finally bit the bullet. My husband and I decided to take advantage of the «Dinner and a Movie» special that they have in conjunction with The Grand Cinema, which is in theory a great deal. For $ 85 you get two drinks (beer or wine), two salads, two entrees (from a select few), one dessert, and two movie tickets. Adding up what we got, it was a great deal; I just wish that the food had been better and that our server had been more attentive.
I got the salmon with cauliflower cous cous, squash, and green beans, which was good, but I could make it better and more flavorful myself. My husband had the bone in pork chop with mac & cheese; his came a good 5 minutes before mine and was cold. I didn’t taste his but he said he was underwhelmed. The cinnamon roll bread pudding was the savior and I’m glad we ended our meal on a positive note.
I think Maxwell’s would benefit from having a full time busser on staff, because I was thiiiis close to getting up and grabbing the pitcher of water to fill my own glass. The atmosphere seems romantic and speakeasy-​esque from the street, but there isn’t much personality to the restaurant from inside. With a little shove in the right direction, Maxwell’s would thrive in the Tacoma community — I hope it happens for them.

This lounge was one of our favorite places! I’m not sure what happened but they used to have a large selection of appetizers and entrees. We came here recently only to see a handful of dinner entrees one being a burger or the most expensive steak. What happened to their menu?! So sad to loose such a great place to relax and unwind!

Speakeasy my posterior.
The food here not only is disgusting, but my wife and I felt honestly discriminated against. We are Very disappointed as this place was seemingly highly rated, but learned while we ate from overhearing the manager speak to a couple seated next to us that it is under new ownership. Well I’ll tell you, the new owners castrated this place.
Let’s start with the food: We ordered the mussels and clams for an appetizer and while you would expect some oceany smells from a seafood dish, the aroma these roughly 8 or 9 shellfish gave off was like getting hit in the face with kelp. Despite this, they were the most unflavored things we ate. The sauce they were in left everything to be desired.
We champed it out, however, and decided to give the benefit of the doubt and order dinner. My wife got the previously highly reviewed pork chop, and with little other choice was left with the unimaginative medium-​rare burger. The food came quicker than expected, and we should have realized that this was a bad sign. Her pork chop wasn’t just a little pink, it was chewy raw. It was unsafe to eat. My medium-​rare burger had soaked the bottom bun in blood. It was dripping blood, and was completely raw in the middle.
We wanted to leave, and asked for the bill, but the waiter wouldn’t bring it to us without trying to fix the issue. Don’t argue, we don’t trust your food any more, there’s no fixing that.
Lastly, we watched as every other table was served bread. We had to ask for ours, and the waiter said that he’ll see about having the kitchen warm some up for us… The manager stopped at every other table to chat with the patrons, which seemed nice, but completely ignored us. When we were getting carded for our drinks, the waiter made a rude comment about my wife’s age.
All of this coupled with the fecal matter covers of modern music made the whole experience laughable. I wish a food network show would come here and fix this place, as it has potential, but they probably couldnt justify bringing it back so far from the dead.
Don’t waste your time, money, or health eating here.

You want to go here.
We came here on ¹¹⁄₀₇ on our last night out before I left for California. Dimmed lights, live jazz music and candlelight seating, Maxwell’s really has this romantic, 1920’s ambiance to it. We were seated in the back dining area where there was more privacy for just the two of us. The Unilocal check in deal got us the mushroom bruschetta which my date refused to touch. I actually am not a fan of mushrooms either, I hate them more than I like them, but it was free. And it looked pretty, so I ate it. And loved it. So if you’re ever having trouble getting your kids to eat vegetables you should just top it on a piece of toast and pour some wine on it.
For our main course I got the sauteed clams (yeah I totally didn’t realize I was ordering off the ‘snacks’ segment of the menu) and my date got the sirloin steak. It did take a while for us to receive our order, but to be fair we ordered a steak and our food tasted pretty damn good. So just take that time to converse with whoever you came with. Learn more about them, ask about their life story, their views on contemporary art, their social security number, I don’t know. I loved my clams and I was addicted to the broth. It was salty and savory and I just wanted to slurp it straight from the bowl, it was so good. And it clung nicely to everything you submerged in it. The clams, the bread, I was even dipping fries in it, I couldn’t get enough of that broth! The steak was amazing. It was juicy and tender, and whatever sauce or butter that baby was served on just made it 10x better (order it, it will solve all of your first world problems in life, I promise). When it came around to boxing up the leftovers, I made sure the steak came home with me. Oh my god, the cinnamon roll bread pudding. It was so beautiful and it tasted so, so good. The bread pudding was incredible with it’s crispy exterior and this warm, fluffy interior of big, sweet cinnamon roll chunks, topped with a cool whipped cream on top of gooey caramel sauce. You want to order it. Just do it.
Now the service. Because we were in the back dining area, we didn’t get a lot of attention from our waitress. I feel like once we got our food, she was nowhere to be seen. I actually tried to order our dessert through the host as he was making his way to the back, in which he had to inform the waitress that we wanted to order something else. But in her defense, as my date reminded me, it’s a lounge. It was loud that night with a lot of people, there were big groups, and it wasn’t like she was rude to us. She was very sweet and courteous and an overall fantastic waitress, it was just really busy that night. So if you want a damn good steak, an unforgettable dessert, and don’t mind a long wait, I’d definitely suggest going here.

My heart is breaking. We loved this place. However, after our most recent experience, post flood, we will not be returning. The food is now bland. Only 6 entrees, 4 if you take out the burger and dinner for 2. This pic I’m posting next sums it up. On the right, the meat platter we got in July 2015. On the left, the «meat plate» served in November 2015. They lost the best waiter I’ve ever had, and their chef. And they’ve lost this client.

Beautiful place but took 30 minutes for our meal to arrive even though we told our server we had a time limit. The server never came back to see if we wanted more drinks, etc. One meal seemed to be missing half the menu description and arrived barely lukewarm and the other had a sauce on it that we had requested be left off but our server noted that the kitchen said they wouldn’t be able to get it out in a timely manner if we sent it back. No apology. The hostess came and sat in my coat to talk to someone next to us. Wasn’t impressed except for décor.

We are so happy Maxwells is open again. My husband has never had a better pork chop than tonight at Maxwells. The best mojitos in town are back! Shrimp & avocado salad was really good too. Needs toasted bread with it though.
Same sexy ambiance & music. It was busy tonight but you could tell the waitstaff was working hard. Maxwells is an experience not fast food. We’ll be back.

I visited Maxwell’s a few weeks back on a vacation. This place was amazing!
Great food, macaroni was wonderful and steak great!!!
Service was on point. Looks like some nice upgrades and new seating in the place made a nice touch. Great new menu and would go back when I visit Tacoma again.
Great place for my wedding anniversary dinner!
⁵⁄₅ 100%.

Had dinner here for our 17^th anniversary.
The Good: The Manhattan I had was one of the best I’ve had. The main course was not bad. I had the special-​a rib eye steak. Very good. My wife had the duck, she said it was good.
The Bad: The side dishes were down right poor. They served my meal with 4 yukon gold small potatoes. Hardly cooked and no seasoning at all. Just 4 room temperature potatoes on my plate. Seriously. My wife had some vegetables that she said were almost raw and also no flavor. So whoever did the side dishes was not awake yet or something.
We also noted that the meal did not match the description in the menu or the waiters description of the meal. And the menu at the restaurant did not match the menu on their website.
Conclusion: we agreed that we’d go there again for happy hour as the drinks and appetizer were great. If our dinner had been less expensive, I don’t think we’d feel so picky. But given the price they were charging for dinner, we felt that it should be more accurate and not ‘thrown together’ as ours appeared to have been. We expected better and were disappointed.

Had late drinks and a bite last night and it was great. New management has done a beautiful job maintaining Maxwell’s interesting feel.
We’ll be back!

Looking forward to a small bite and drink before the movie on a rare date night. we have been going to Maxwells since they opened. This was our first time in months… very disappointed… hostess never gave us menus (too busy chatting at the bar) drinks were okay but not really as described. Had to send the grilled shrimp back because of the fishy smell and I had a cold.
We were still charged for the dish although the bartender agreed the smell was not fresh (and never changed the bill) Over all Maxwells has become such a disappointment with the dirty floors, slow service and food/​menu that has taken a turn for the worst; starting to have a run down feel. What a bummer it has become very obvious someone has stopped caring. Hopefully the new restaurants opening up in the stadium/​Procter district will learn from Maxwell’s mistakes.

They have excellent cocktails, capped with a Vesper like Martini. Many of the liqueurs and beers are local Washington brews where possible.
I had a burger that was pretty thick and filling. The truffled Parmesan broccoli was good, but made me feel like I was choosing the least healthiest way possible to eat broccoli.
My he place has good ambiance, but could be enhanced with a live band. All in all a excellent experience with a polite and attentive waitstaff.

Maxwell’s is surprisingly bigger than the outside makes it seem. Warm ambience created by soft lighting and dark color scheme inside. Classy for a place in downtown Tacoma. The bartender was very friendly and quick to make our drinks.
The only thing I didn’t like about Maxwells’ was that they have a tv at the bar– completely unnecessarily compared to the speak-​easy + lounge ambience you immediately get upon entering the restaurant. That being said, it is a nice place to go out for a fancy date! I will definitely be going back to try some food next time :)

It was my first time trying this restaurant and I already knew what I wanted to order, which was prosciutto wrapped halibut. Unfortunately, they’ve just changed their menu for spring, so they didn’t have it. We ordered max n cheese for appetizer, and lamb, duck breast, and carbonara pasta for 3 people. Max n cheese was amazing. Plenty cheesy with flavor, yet not overwhelming. Lamb was ok, a little overpriced for two small pieces of meat and what the plate was able to offer in terms of flavor. Duck breast was my favorite, had perfect flavor with shitaki mushroom and greens, and good portion. Carbonara pasta was actually a little dissapointing. The noodle was overcooked and sticking with each other, the over-​easy egg on top was kind of out of place. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to pop it and mix with noodle. (which I did, and I didn’t like it because it just consumed the overall flavor of the dish with yolky smell.) The portion was VERY small for the price. My boyfriend could’ve finished it in two minutes. (He didnt, he was being polite.)
I ordered my usual drink, old-​fashioned. It was different because they put little shredded (?) orange zest instead of a big piece of it. You might like it, but I prefer a big piece so I don’t have to worry about the little pieces coming into my mouth every time I take a sip.
It was Friday night, so they had live jazz band and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. I like the overall ambiance of the restaurant including their pretty chandelier.
It was not the best first impression overall, but I will come back to try other dishes.

This is the best dinner I have had in such a long time. Perfectly prepared steak. Fresh and perfectly cooked salmon. Amazing cocktails. Literally the best Crème Brulee i have ever tasted. Good service too. The hubs and I will be back next Thirsty Thursday for sure.

Took a few times passing by to find the place because Unilocal says its a block up, but happy once we did. The bar seating was all that was available & we got there right after it had opened. I had a pear + berries martini that was perfect and very tasty. We used the free app code & got mushroom crostini. It was Very tasty. I don’t particularly like mushrooms, but I could not get enough of those. Couldn’t decide on dinner, and remembered hearing that their Mac was amazing, so ordered it plus scallops. The scallops were large and cooked perfectly. The Mac had large chunks of bacon in it and a white cheese sauce. I hate to say, but I’ve had better Mac (I’m a bit of a connoisseur). It was Good though & I’m sure it would be with prawns too (another addition choice).

My fiancé and I came here for our 4 year anniversary dinner. Originally I just looked the place on Unilocal since he wanted a good steak dinner. This place definitely delivers! He had the steak and I had the lamb shank. The portions made me feel like I was in the Flinstones! I ordered a side of mashed potatoes expcting a small bowl or place. it was like they brought out a serving bowl size of some of the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had! They don’t skimp on the alcohol in their drinks either. If you want wine but also liquor I believe it as the Pears & Berries drink cocktail (it has red wine and liquor), it was so good. The meal was amazing and the wait staff was attentive, but she didn’t have a whole lot off people to wait on.
The décor of the place made me feel like I was back in the old ballrooms of an actual speakeasy with the chandeliers and everything. The atmosphere is true to the name, but if you’re looking for a place that’s cheap or easy on the pockets this is definitely not the place for you. Great for a special occasion, or just if you want to treat yourself! I think both our meals were around $ 40 each (but for the amount of food you get, it works out) not including drinks. Great place to stop by to wind down after work. Expect to hear music from teh Frank Sinatra era. Even their music sets the speakeasy mood!
Overall, great experience, great fod, relaxing time, but ouch my wallet (so worth it though)!