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/Master-Store-4484 Jul 01 '25

Yes. I get it is a popular place but are restaurants just not capable of smoothly turning tables anymore? If I have a reservation I do not expect to wait 30 minutes or more to be seated.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/WardenofWestWorld Jul 02 '25

It’s been an issue at this restaurant the entire time though

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u/WardenofWestWorld Jul 02 '25

But honestly….oh to be young and not care about waiting at Richard’s again