Cafe Maxim

"I love this place! I feel so lucky that my office is in a building where the one restaurant there is amazing. They have the best soups in the city and all the food is affordable. Even if I didn't work in the same office building, I would make it a point to regularly visit Cafe Maxim."

"It's fine. The chicken tortilla soup is killer. The rest is pretty good. It's a simple joint to grab food at a reasonable price next to my office. It's more of a convenience than a special dining experience but it's fine."

"Love the breakfast offering. Can't miss out on the chicken tortilla soup on Thursday."

"A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers convinced me to give this restaurant another chance. Previously I had decided not to go to this establishment because of the bad service I felt like I received on numerous occasions. Today I am leaving this review because I no longer believe that the food is safe to consume here. The same coworker who convinced me to go back to this place bought me breakfast from there to cheer me up. She bought me a pancake and usually items such as pancakes, toast, grits, and oatmeal, they give you a side of butter. I opened my container of butter and there was a piece of raw chicken mixed in! I went downstairs to the cafe and asked to speak to the owner because I wanted to keep this low profile and ensure that they throw away the butter container that it may have come from. Since he was occupied, I called over a lady behind the counter and showed her the container. She quickly threw the container away and apologized for the inconvenience. I told her to take it out of the trash because the owner needed to see that and she was like "it's ok". So I told her "no please take it out of the trash and hand it to him." She fished it out and placed it in front of him in the back kitchen area. He opened it and looked at it. He proceeds to tell me that one of the employees probably used the same knife for the "cooked" ham and put it into the butter and what I am seeing is cooked meat. I told him that I didn't want someone to get sick from this and that is why I am telling him directly. Before I took the butter to them, I took the meat out with my knife. I 100% do not believe that the meat was cooked and even so, the fact that it is in there means that there is cross contamination. The first time this happened I had onions in my grits which I assume happened due to using the same spoon for one thing to do something else. It isn't sanitary. Some people don't eat "pork" so there shouldn't be "pork" in something that is a shared condiment. But again, this was not pork it was raw chicken which is serious and someone can get salmonella. I just didn't get the sense that I was taken serious when I left there and for that reason I will no longer eat there. I understand that human error will happen, but the consequences to this blunder is someone getting really ill or even possibly dying and that I take very seriously. I would have felt better if the staff was like "we'll throw the butter away just in case", but all I received was an apology for the inconvenience..."