Max McQ's

I wrestled with giving these folks 3 or 4 stars, and hope on my next visit to upgrade.  This place is located in "The Valley", and anyone that has been around Akron for awhile knows that what was once a very up and coming area has largely fallen on hard times, with low-income housing close by, and the requisite check-cashing places etc. that follow.
In the day I was quite fond of this place for a local watering hole with  grub.  
Since the Doc has cleverly nicknamed my liver "Sponge Bob", I've been focusing on the food.
Stopped by on a weekday long after normal lunch hour, (2:00-ish), on the way from errands run in the Falls to home in Bath.
I got their grilled buffalo chicken salad, and the lady got a pizza.
Both of us had iced tea, (brewed) to drink.
The barkeep was our waiter.
Amazingly he did a GREAT job tending us with never empty glasses, ample conversation, honest opinions about dishes served on site, (VERY refreshing), etc.
His name was John, and this was, dumbfoundingly, the best waiter experience I've had in years, and the all-time best I've EVER had in this type of venue.
KUDOS John!!
The salad was ample, and as requested came with extra wing sauce.  It would have been excellent, but the sauce was kinda so-so.  It lacked the heat typical of the genre and just didn't meet expectations.  
It might have been home-made, but straight from the bottle would be an improvement to my tastebuds.
The lady was kind enough to suggest I try a slice of her way-ample pizza in lieu of the pita triangles that accompanied the salad, and who am I to turn down that good an offer?
This is the best bar pizza I've ever had.  
She ordered it with extra cheese and unlike other pizza hawkers, it actually had double cheese on top.  The (homemade) crust was perfectly done, had ample homemade sauce and the pie was quite flavorful despite her annoying habit of forgetting to order any meat on her pizza.  (Actually she didn't forget, I just likes me meat!)
It was served with shakers of parmesan and red pepper flakes, nice touch Max!
The barkeep had to have appeared at our table 10 times during the course of serving us, and get this, offered "to go" cups of our teas when the check was presented.
At a bar, mind you!
Damn!  
Why didn't I get a Long Island iced tea???!!
Their special today was a home-made 12" one-topping pizza for $5.00.
Damn!
Good food, good prices and great service!
They had a board listing their daily specials all of which were similarly well priced.
Tell Mad Max we'll be back!!!!

Lent Review

Stopped in for lunch since we didn't have cash for Michael's AM... decided to give it a  try during daylight.

Only 3 other parties in the whole place and it was still rather loud from the TV's showing ESPN... March Madness has just started so we were glad to have Sports Center to watch.

The place is a dark dive even in the middle of the day... pool table is strategically placed where the ceiling is peeling and there are some dodgy parts of the railing to the 2nd level but the tables are clean and look rather new.

The bartender waited on everyone... was really efficient and got us refills of our soda before we asked.

Lent special was either 8 shrimp or all you could eat fish with 2 sides AND a side salad... over all a good deal.

Chips and fries were good.. really fresh... but loaded with salt and pepper.

Over heard the bartender explaining to another table the fish was Pollack... and then had to explain what Pollack was :-)... he did a great job and was super patient with the people who seemed endlessly confused.

We aren't fans of Karaoke but I would visit again on an off hour lunch... the noise was a bit much even with so few people in the place.

Big comfortable bar and the food wasn't bad.   A few old fashioned TV's whose sound is automatically turned off when someone plays the jukebox

Been there twice.  Sat at the bar one time and was treated pretty well.  The second time we sat at a table.  This was later in the evening and we were the only ones not sitting at the bar.  The waitress delivered drinks to us and then went home without a word to us.  We finally figured out that we were on our own and went to the bartender to order our food.