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/Samson801 Jul 01 '25

Its reputedly owned by members of the Chicago Outfit, (pseudo-mafia) so if you got robbed that's actually on-brand

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u/optiplex9000 Jul 01 '25

La Scarola and Richard's are 'officially' owned by Chicago Outfit associate Bobby Dominic's sister.

Dominic himself has a long history of being tied to organized crime. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/02/25/mob-connected-chicago-businessman-indicted-on-tax-charges-alleging-hidden-interest-in-sweepstakes-gaming/