LaScala's Beach House — Restaurant in Brigantine

Where do I begin…one star is way too many for this for this less than mediocre and typical Jersey shore establishment.

I went to LaScala’s Beach House to have dinner with my girlfriend and to watch my fiance play in the band which was playing there that evening.

The gist of this review which makes it extremely lengthy is as follows…after ordering apps/meals and many rounds of drinks. Our waitress comes over and says “I have to give you the bill and ask you to leave” she proceeds to say “you can go to the bar or hang out on the beach where the band is playing but we need these tables.” Mind you the total of my bill was $244.18. Apparently they have a 90 minute window policy that after you order and eat you must pay and leave. Say what?? Now mind you there were quite a few other tables they were asking to pay their bills as well, because there was apparently a 3 hr wait for others waiting to get seated. Again, not my problem. (Plus, when we left after the band had finished about an hour and half later there were plenty of empty tables so how was it a 3 hour wait when they asked us to leave is beyond me). I’m a paying customer who was going to continue to order more food and drinks. If we had been able to stay at the table most likely the bill would have been well over $300. But was told if I wanted to order more food/drink they would do take out order??? The table next to us had a bill of $500 and were asked to leave as well!! Along with 4-5 other tables. Most of which were friends and family of the band playing that evening. All of which had very hefty bills. After trying to make sense and question all of this. The manager came over with two other guys and a 6’4” intimidating security guy. Now this is where I draw the line. Are you for real LaScalas?? Treating people like criminals with complete disrespect who just paid a $250 bill? If you think doing this scared me, you only fueled me to write this bad review even more. If I refused to leave what was this guy going to do?? If you dare to think he’d touch me or anyone else who PAID their bills, you’d be sued!!! Beyond a disgrace how we were all treated. I felt violated and discriminated against as a woman and paying patron of this horrible establishment!

Next was the restroom issues. Long lines for ladies of course (nothing new). There was a men’s room but not a ladies room except “unisex” bathrooms. Then the lines were so long they said to people (mainly women) they could use the porta potties outside of the restaurant! You go use a porta potty after spending $500 in this pit of a place! People are spending top dollar and you don’t have enough bathrooms?? This says to me that maybe your occupancy is way over the limits and is a safety hazard. I know nothing will be done about how I and others were treated but I can’t in my good conscience let this go without letting others know not to waste your time or hard earned money patronizing this less then mediocre establishment!

Oh and one more thing to add salt to the wound! The waitress hunted me down asking me if I was going to tip her, this was after I told her I was going to give her a cash tip and I was waiting to get cash from my fiance who was playing in the band. I wasn’t skipping out on tipping her! She got her 20% tip because this is how people who have class...

Let me get two nice things out of the way:

Location: Fantastic! Really nice bright dining room, and its literally on the beach, could not be closer.

Service: Our server was quite nice and wonderful, very friendly

Everything else, is meh-to-bad.

The food menu I would describe as "Upscale corner Pizza shop". They have paninis, salads, pizzas, standard appetizers like calamari. Things you might be ok paying $10-12 for but when its $16 for a chicken and roasted pepper panini, the value disappears.

The food quality is also aligned with the pizza shop analogy. It was all pretty bland, seeming to align with a "one size fits all" flavor approach, meaning nothing that's actually properly seasoned, (needed salt and pepper for everything), and just meh. Also my food came out, politely put, just warm at best, which is not ideal for something meant to be crispy like calamari.

The biggest issue by FAR is their "system" of getting food out to you. Whatever you order, comes out as it is made. So if you get an appetizer, a salad, a pizza, a panini, and an order of brussels sprouts, its a roll of the dice what comes out first. For our table, we ordered calamari, kids mac and cheese (which was penne pasta and cheese, sounds nit picky but dude its dried pasta, spring for the curly noodles), two paninis, a kids cheese pizza, and a tuna dish.

Order received:

Kids pizza and mac and cheese (we literally told her to order it first, and then we asked her to come back for fear of us just saying the words aloud she would ring it in on her toast tab portable terminal)

5 Min later

Calamari (my entree). Again, not hot, so was it just sitting in the window? Was it precooked?

10 Minutes later

Both Paninis (flavor was ok, bread was nice just bland)

10 minutes after that

Tuna dish. Person who ordered it seemed to enjoy it

Look at that timeline, and that was for a small table.

I observed the table across from us who had it looks like 3 children and 5 adults suffer the same fate, but it was even worse. I saw a pizza come out, 10 minutes later an order of fries, 10 min later a salad, and then 10 min after that I think I saw the kids meals finally show up. Make it make sense.

Perhaps I am biased since I used to work in a kitchen and ran a high volume one for 5 years, and am used to the normal process of coursing out meals, but I cannot fathom a scenario in which not having someone run the expo and call tickets works as an advantage in any situation.

Considering they are also still blaming covid/"economic conditions" for tacking on a 3% credit card fee, maybe that could be allocated to some kitchen help or a POS System that might bring them into the 20th century when it comes to coursing out meals.

Long review, but not as long as that table waited for their kids food.

But the...

Honestly very upset as my family spends a lot of our summer in Brigantine and have decided after this past weekend that we will not be going back. The food is delicious, while a bit pricey I believe it is worth it. The service on the other hand is absolutely horrendous. My husband went ahead of time to start getting a table, when I went to meet him I had a stroller and made sure I was not blocking anything while I tried to call to figure out where he was sitting. One of the servers rushed past me angrily telling me to “get this stroller out of the way” and ran off. We ordered our food and received most of it, but about 10 minutes in my husband still had not received his food. When we were finally able to find our server about 10 more minutes after, she went to check where his food was and told us they would make it now, this is 20 minutes after we had all received our food and were almost done eating. There was no explanation, no apology. While we were sitting still waiting on my husbands food, still picking at our food and trying to enjoy drinks the bussers kept coming up to ask if they could take our things. When our friend got up to tend to her baby, someone came by and cleared her half eaten dish and full drink without ever asking any of us if we were done. We felt rushed from the second we sat down and got nothing but terrible attitudes from the workers. Let me also mention there were 6 of us and sat at our table for less than 30 minutes before they came asking to clear our things. I worked in the food industry for years, I worked the chaotic Saturday nights as an overwhelmed server and know how stressful it can be. But I also made sure to never taken my frustration and stress out on customers. My husband and I have three kids, one being an infant. We have never been able to get out much but especially more now that we have a baby. We look forward to these special nights. This isn’t a review to look for anything in return as we have made our decision to not waste the little time we get on places that make us feel rushed and unwelcome, but maybe if this somehow makes it’s way back to an owner/manager, please have a talk with your staff about how important the customer experience is especially for those of us who can only enjoy times like this once...