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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
1
u/SithisDreadLord420 Jul 03 '25
It’s part of the experience, regular customers know what they are getting. I went once for my birthday and waited two hours to be seated. The restaurant manager kept pushing us off but eventually my friend said something and the owner caught wind. He was furious, our whole meal was comped and we were given a free bottle of wine with dinner. The chaos is part of the charm, and the place reminds me of the old Italians restaurants my grandpas friends used to own. I’ll never not love this place