Max’s Eatz & Fresh Bakery

There isn’t a lot to choose from at the SFO Southwest Terminal… we walked around and checked out all the menus — we had time as our flight was delayed. It was breakfast time and those fluffy croissants stuffed with eggs and cheese just looked pretty damn good. And you know what? They were.
I was skeptical. I’ve complained about airport pricing and I think I paid $ 11.95 or so for a bacon, egg and cheese croissant. But it was really pretty good. And it served as both breakfast and lunch — I ate part in the airport and the rest on the flight. It was large and surprisingly tasty. My SO got a «roasted veggie» croissant that included some eggplant and squash and other vegetables. Frankly I thought it looked awful but she enjoyed it. I can’t imagine anyone eating roasted veggies for breakfast but… well I really can’t imagine anyone eating roasted veggies so… there you go. And it was the best vegetarian option at the terminal if you want some semblance of a real meal, which she insists on for breakfast.
Service was very fast. And again, I was super impressed with the overall taste and quality of my large breakfast croissant sandwich. A bacon/​egg/​cheese croissant done well can make me very happy. Maybe worth noting I was dealing with a little hangover so, that probably helped.

This airport eatery reached a new low in customer service while I visited over Memorial day weekend. The cashier was amazingly skilled in texting on her cell phone while ringing up my 22 dollar breakfast. Never once made eye contact or said thank you. She was even able to hand me eating utensils while checking her Wells Fargo account. Unbelievable! The quality of the food was decent but certainly not worth 22 dollars.

Amazing Reuben Sandwich!
Get half, it’s ALOT! I experienced good customer service here. Dining area was dirty

I ate here today and had a turkey sandwich, the potato salad that it comes with and a bottle of Naked OJ. The bread was dry and tasteless, the potato salad was just okay (kind of looked like it had been ran through the blender) — the best thing was… the Naked OJ that they didn’t make! Oh, and this lunch cost me $ 23.03. For a sandwich.
The Southwest terminal in SFO has the worst food of any airport I have been to. Eat before you get here, wait until you leave, or see if the TSA will let you into the United terminal where you can find decent food.

Ok, maybe it’s more of a 3 star joint, but honestly if you’re comparing to eateries in this terminal, Max’s is your best bet. Yes, it’s expensive, and yes it’s not AMAZING. But it’s better than anything I’ve gotten at Willow and Legends just looks Scary from the photos.
The Russian cabbage soup has a sweetness and is quite delicious! The man who made my half sandwich was courteous and stacked my Sammy! Plus you get a cookie if you get a half sandwich and soup.

I had ordered the Max’s Pastrami Ruben sandwich. It was pretty good. Packed with sourkrauts, melted swiss cheese, thousand island sauce, rye bread heated up at the pan. The sandwich comes with yout choice of either Cole slaw or potato salad. A pickle or two on the side. You can upgrade your choice of sides to french fries for less than $ 3. Airport food will always be more expensive than regular stores, so I am not going to hold that against them.

Really good Russian cabbage soup! Giovanni is an extremely helpful and nice man! Max’s is lucky to have him! 5 stars to him.

«Max,»
Your Reuben sandwich was absolutely amazing – one of the best I’ve ever had!
The service, however, was one-​star. Here are a few suggestions to bring the service up to par with the food:
1) Have a designated spot for receiving orders.
2) If you’re not going to have a designated ordering stations, please look at people when you talk to them.
3) If you’re not going to look at people when you talk to them, maybe don’t hide in a corner, behind a counter and two other workers while you talk to us.
4) I’m all for welcoming hard workers into our country, but it’s probably best if you have at least one person whose accent is understandable to English speakers. I watched multiple people graciously humble themselves as they were barked at when they couldn’t understand what was being said to them (while chasing a downward-​looking, hiding, hopefully-​taking-​an-​order employee). You also lost a customer who waited in «line» for five minutes to ask how much a bag of chips cost.
5) For a $ 20 sandwich, I’d like to be able to eat my food in peace. The seating area next to your restaurant was sorely under-​stocked with chairs, and we literally barely avoided an explosion between two «large» groups of 3 and 4 people, fighting over seats, in spite of the fact that at least five tables were open.
Best of luck! I hope to see matching service and food next time I’m in San Francisco!
Angie

This is actually a pretty good option for an airport! Prices aren’t in the stratosphere and food is surprisingly good, if you know what to order. According to my guy, Max’s is an NY-​style deli chain, so those menu options tend to be their best efforts.
A half-​sando-​half-​soup combo was only $ 12 and oddly came with a full-​sized corned beef sandwich– I guess the «half» part had to do with how much meat was stuffed inside. The meat itself is specific to the company, and is delicious. The sandwich was simply dressed with mustard and mayo (on rye, of course) and was perfect. BF inhaled their Russian cabbage soup, which was tasty but not my kind of dish. Made for a low-​priced shared meal before our flight home.

Just had one of the best sandwiches ever!
Go have a hot pastrami with Swiss on Rye and be in heaven. Honestly, this is in the SF airport and freaking amazing. The wife had the half Reuben (which was whole sandwich) which she loves as well.
Great potato salad too

Tl;dr version: The food tastes like you are in prison.
—
Twenty years ago you were arrested for a crime you didn’t commit. You’ve served your time and now you are a free person. Readjusting back to society has been difficult, and you find yourself longing for the once brutal conditions of prison that now seem comforting. You are about to mug a young couple for the purposes of getting caught and sent back to prison when you overhear them talking about their horrific, prison-​like experience at Terminal 1 of the SFO airport. You decide to go there to check it out.
«Ah…the steel jungle,» you say approvingly as you stroll past security. «This place was designed for maximum pain. I can smell the human terror in here. This is where I belong.»
You spot Max’s and immediately are reminded of the prison cafeteria. The sickly looking sliced meats. The wilted, rotting lettuce that’s more slime than leaf. Crusted soup buckets. «Made with such desperation and disregard,» you remark. «I think I shall make this my temple.»
You order the Reuben with pastrami. As you take a bite the warm feeling of being forced to eat something because you are trapped with no escape washes over you and your eyes water from joy. It tastes like years of hard time.
Because you walked past security without a plane ticket and didn’t stop when the metal detectors went off, a team of TSA guards has surrounded you. Establish your dominance and throat-​punch the largest one or these punks will keep messing with you. Finish your sandwich while the guard gasps for air and his friends beat you with clubs.
You’re back in prison for yet another crime you didn’t commit. «Such is life,» you muse to yourself, as you take a bite of your prison sandwich. It’s awful. But at least it’s not $ 16.

I’d give zero stars if I could. The 18.00 breakfast consisted of a croissant, eggs, chicken sausage and water. The croissant tasted bad, like stale freezer burn. The eggs were under cooked and the chicken sausage tasted like fatty pork. This place is very bad and the airport should investigate their quality and price gouging. I would recommend you wait until 5am and go to one of the other places at the airport. This is the only thing open at 430 but I’d say pass it up at all costs.

I know airport restaurants have got to make their $$$ but $ 13.99 FOR THE ALL-​AMERICAN BREAKFAST, which consisted of…
some disgusting scrambled eggs, alike those buffett-​style eggs
overcooked sausage (3)
mashed up potatoes, and no I don’t mean mashed potatoes, the good kind.
a bread roll
IS OUTRAGEOUS. I also paid $ 3.99 for a small bottle of FIJI water.
$ 20 for a bottle water and shitty breakfast that’s worse than Dennys? Please, someone help me call 9−1−1, because I just been robbed!

The service was so-​so and the cheesesteak was descent. Nothing really great to say about it. The Philly cheesesteak was made to order but barely had cheese on it. The side of potato salad was very good though but a very small portion. The lady taking the order wasn’t very friendly but the cashier was. I guess you can’t expect too much at the airport though.

2.5 stars
I bought a cheese, egg, and roasted veggie croissant breakfast sandwich. It was quite large, made with a croissant the size of the ones found at Costco, and there was a generous amount of scrambled eggs on it. While not great, or healthy (even with the veggies) this was satisfying, and left me feeling like I’d eaten real food (versus McDonald’s). I appreciate the fact that roasted veggies were even an option, and that they tasted pretty good. While this was overpriced ($ 11 after tax!), that’s not outlandish, considering that this is an airport.

For an airport Grab & Go Greek Salad, Max’s DID NOT disappoint! I usually don’t have high expectations for airport food but any time that I can snag a fresh salad without homemade dressing {…dressing in a packet is totally not my thing}. I jump on it! If you’re flying Southwest out of SFO and CRAVING your daily greens {…especially after a week of foodie comfort food in SF}, I recommend Max’s! The sweet man working the counter today was also extra cheery which is always refreshing after a busy work week!

Only place open around my Gate which is 4:30am
They were serving breakfast food like Eggs, ham, sausage and potatoes. (which is called the all american) They also serve breakfast croissants and bagels but I decided with the All American .
The food overall is okay quality… Well it is airport food after all. And it’s Over priced.

Why 3 stars? Because it was typical airport fare.
— — —
Just a quick stop on the way out of town, and I grabbed a cinnamon raisin bagel. It wasn’t a super eventful moment in my life, but it also wasn’t bad. The guy behind the counter seemed to be in a joyful mood, as he was singing in between asking me what I’d like to order. He was «whistling as he worked,» as the great philosophers, the Ying Yang Twins, would say.
There are significantly better options at SFO than this one, but if you’re in a hurry, want something quick, and/​or want something cheap, Max’s will be perfectly adequate.

I needed breakfast… And I wanted an egg something, but not a full omelete… So, breakfast croissant sounded really good, and I thought that putting vegetable in it was a great refreshing idea since I don’t like breakfast meats and plain cheese and egg is boring.
The result was very disappointing and i want my $ 11 back! It was a pre-​made egg scramble topped with slices of cold soggy zucchini, eggplant, and something that probably used to be a tomato a day ago… The croissant was also soggy and kinda stale ob top. If I wasn’t boarding a plane 10 minutes after I got this nasty mess in a box, I would have returned this and asked for a refund! Nasty!!!
I hope that other owner of this chain read this, become ashamed and close this disaster down. Come on, Max! You are doing so well elsewhere!

Limited options in Terminal 1 on the Southwest side. Ordered a corned beef sandwich, chocolate chip cookie, and a Monster drink = $ 25.
It’s extremely annoying the way they build the sandwich. By the time you get to your gate and sit down to eat (about 2 minutes), the bottom half is soggy. This is a knife and fork type sandwich because it’s impossible to hold it to eat.
The taste is average. You get coleslaw or potato salad so remember to get a fork. There are no utensils as part of their packing.
I’m only writing this review as a reminder to myself to get food elsewhere!