Sal's Trattoria — Restaurant in Lake View Township

Rude, dismissive, arrogant, and ungrateful. If I could give negative 10 stars for "service" I would.

Sadly, last night was the LAST night we will ever visit Sal's Trattoria. We had been loyal customers for years. I even had a 25-person dinner there for my birthday a few years ago.

We arrived for our 7 PM reservation. The interior was practically empty, as some customers were braving the elements (or ignoring them) by sitting outside.

The hostess (who I believe is the owner) asked if we wanted inside or outside. I specifically said I wanted inside because it was too chilly for us to sit outside. My husband was getting over a cold, and I wasn't dressed to sit outside in 55 degree weather.

She walks us to an inside table. Right next to the double doors. Which were wide open. 🙄🙄🙄

There were at least 7 other 4-top tables open, so I asked if she could seat us somewhere else. Unfortunately, the new one was only marginally better, but I expected them to eventually close the doors since it was getting colder out. Nope.

As we waited for our friends to arrive, I asked our server to please close the door. The breeze was coming right at us. He closed one of the two doors, and I was okay with that.

Once our friends arrived, we noticed that both doors were open again. Our server told us they needed to stay open since they had to go in and out, serving people. We asked to be moved and he didn't seem to care.

So, we decided to pick up our things and move to an empty table in the back corner since no one cared about helping us. We sat there for 10 minutes without anyone coming over. It was obvious that they were annoyed and decided to retaliate by acting like petulant children. GREAT way to woo your customers.

We looked at each other, whipped out our phones, and promptly made a reservation at @summerhouse. When we got up to leave, the server finally came over to ask what was wrong. We left money for the glass of wine I had half-drunk and told them we were leaving. He said, "Sorry it didn't work out. See you next time." "No, you won't," my husband replied.

Why, oh why, would a small business feel that this is an appropriate way to treat customers, never mind long-standing, repeat customers??? The horrible behavior from the staff is a reflection of the owner's attitude. "You know what" runs downhill.

I have been a business owner since 1997. If I EVER had one team member act like this, he/she would be fired immediately. It is far too easy for customers to leave. Why encourage them to...

Priced like an elegant meal when really it's just decent Italian food with poor execution. There's no spark of passion in this place.

Free bread is cold and most likely not homemade. Being sat near a waiter station, I saw them taking the baskets from the pile of 2 dozen baskets, and restocking those 2 dozen baskets about once an hour. I think Olive Garden has a better, warmer, fresher bread experience.

We ordered the SPECIAL caprese salad with mushrooms, mozzerella, basil, and tomatoes; when it comes out it has exactly 2 CHERRY tomatoes on the whole plate, and exactly 1 WHOLE basil leaf, and mozzerella was nothing better than grocery store...clearly needed more attention to basics because I could execute this better at home.

Pasta was good flavor but poor texture/cooking, I think the rigatoni noodles were just too thick. Earlier in the meal, the waiter told us they get their pasta from a small shop in north Chicago, so they're clearly trying a little bit...but for a local upscale (read: expensive) Italian shop...how are you not making your own noodles??? By the way, this dish was the one the waiter said 'Everyone should order this at least once here in their lifetime.'

Espresso: We were sat near their espresso machine; twice I saw a waiter begin to make a fancy coffee, activating the steamer and putting it in the cup, moving it around and such...and then he would dump anything in the cup out, look over his shoulder, and discreetly open up the cupboard below and pour coffee from an urn into the cup. There's two logical explanations here and I don't know which one is worse. 1) The patrons ordered coffee and he was heating up the cup before putting pre-brewed coffee in there (which must be at least an hour old because I never saw them change it), or 2) They ordered an espresso based drink, and the waiter fakes making it, only to pour pre-brewed coffee into the cup. Either way something is wrong there.

Lastly, ambiance was a little bit off putting, right in front of my view (near the espresso machine) were ~4 credit card reading machines all charging up with wires hanging down near my date's head....

I have driven past Sal's countless times. A small corner establishment along Southport Ave. We decided to stop in and visit Sal's one evening. We called to reserve a table for two on a Saturday evening with three hour advance notice. Uh ya... too late. But, we still wanted to give it a try so we decided to just show up and see what happens. Yep... glad I did!! We were sat immediately at the bar which was perfect for us. Ample room and just enough seats to keep it cozy. I wish I could remember our bartender's name because he was outstanding; between the wine and food pairing recommendations to the general conversation in between his duties, we had the best seat in the house. The rest of the seating was well spaced out and could accommodate a couple's special occasion or the engagement party that was seated behind us. We started with the Grilled Calamari which was top notch. She had the Fettuccine Cabornara and I had the Sea Bass which was on special. The fettuccine was creamy deliciousness and the bass was a baked flaky forget the knife fall off the fork goodness. As I said, the bartender paired us up both with wines that suited our meals. One was a Montepulciano D'Abruzzo and the other was a Landmark Vinyards Pinot. Perfect - period!!! For desert, we had a Pumpkin Gelato and my chocolate addiction kept me steering toward the Flourless Chocolate Cake with a vanilla sauce that added to my sweet tooth. As I said earlier Sal's is a small establishment set on the west side of Southport Ave just north of Diversey. Don't sneeze and pass this place up. You...