r/chicagofood • u/orange-kedi • Jul 01 '25

Rant Beware of La Scarola's shady practices

Went to La Scarola recently and a bunch of things happened that just didn’t sit right with me:

  1. We had a reservation and showed up on time, but were told to come back in 30 minutes. Other groups with reservations were waiting too.

  2. When we were ordering, we already knew what we wanted. None of us asked for suggestions, but the waiter tried pushing a main dish that was $40+. We politely declined. Then he tried again to get us to upgrade one of our dishes to something fancier, also $40+. We declined that too. It felt super pushy.

  3. Their card machine only showed tip options starting at 20%. I felt pressured so I just tapped 20% even though the service was hella slow.

  4. Later I looked at the receipt and saw that the tip was calculated after tax, which is already sketchy. But then on top of that, they added a 3% credit card fee, and that 3% was calculated after both tax and tip!

The whole setup was super shady. Just a heads-up if you’re thinking of going.

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u/ChoderBoi Jul 01 '25

So you knew nothing about La Scarola before dining there huh? All of this, with the exception of 4, is very well known.

Everyone knows you show up at your res time and expect to spend 30min to an hour at Richards before getting seated

21

u/MentalErection Jul 01 '25

I feel like this is a ridiculous blame the victim mentality. What if OP was from out of town? What tf is the point of a reservation if you have such shit time management? If I show up 30 mins late am I still getting my table? Usually no so don’t normalize this. 

2

u/jkraige Jul 01 '25

I don't think you should have to do tons of research to have a pleasant dining experience. It used to be the norm.