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In the late 1980s, when he moved from a New York suburb to a western suburb of Chicago, Armando Vasquez was a 20-year-old with a dream.
And when he got a job at a restaurant in Warrenville, his life changed.
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On his first day of work, he sat down with the owner Joey Mondelli over a lunch of pasta and octopus.
“He asked me something I’ll never forget,” Armando said in a recent phone conversation. “‘What are you looking for in your life? What do you want to do in your life?’”
Armando moved to New York from Mexico with his brother when he was 14. His first job was as a dishwasher at a restaurant. So what did he see for himself at 20?
“I want to be famous, dude,” he said he told Mondelli. “I want to be on TV and in the paper. Joey said, ‘OK, then you will.’ Everything went from there.”
A decade later Armando and Mondelli became partners in a restaurant venture, one that changed their lives and turned Armando into a star of sorts.
He is known simply as Armando to the patrons of La Scarola, the popular Italian restaurant he and Mondelli co-own on Grand Ave. It’s a cozy two rooms — three if you count the semi-private one in back — and every night, in normal times, it’s crammed with tables, friends, pictures and Armando, the face of the operation.
When you walk in, whether he knows you or not, he will greet you like you’re someone special. If you’re on a date, he’ll find you the best table. If you’re with a group, he’ll demand you do tequila shots with him. In a city full of great restaurants and famous restaurateurs, Armando’s La Scarola is unique.
“We value our customers very much,” he told me in a recent phone conversation. “We want to make them feel like they’re coming home when they come here. We want it to be like walking into a party every day.”
La Scarola opened in 1998. Armando said they first envisioned a breakfast and lunch place, one they could close at 3 p.m. and have a normal life. That didn’t happen. But the actual result has been a smashing success for more than two decades.
“In the beginning, the first seven years, I worked seven days a week, lunch and dinner,” Armando said.
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Normal life was sacrificed for success.
La Scarola owner Armando Vasquez poses with Guy Fieri at the bar of the restaurant. (Courtesy of Armando Vasquez)
Now he finds himself a different kind of busy as he tries to keep La Scarola up and running during the worst health crisis any of us can remember and the scariest business environment since the Great Depression.
“I never expected anything like this to happen ever,” Armando told me. “When they first said Illinois was going to be shutting down, I was worried mostly for my guys. Me, I can survive one, two, three, four months, but what about them? They have families. They live check by check. How are they going to survive?”
So when he found out they would be allowed to do carry-out and delivery, he got to work. His Instagram account @lascarolachicago has about 3,100 followers and he’s been posting non-stop since mid-March. He posts videos of food being cooked, pictures of dishes, of daily menus, of himself waiting for orders.
He solicits pictures from the people who order food like pesto meatballs, veal chop alla Gabe and penne all vodka. They send shots of takeout spreads on countertops, of familiar faces enjoying pasta and chicken and fish. He thanks them by name. He posts updates and schedules suburban delivery appointments.
Armando has become a one-man content machine. If he can’t host the party, by God, he’ll deliver it.
“I’m not the savviest guy with computers,” he said. “But I’m doing my best. I think I’m doing a pretty good job.”
La Scarola does enough sitdown business that Armando was de-emphasizing delivery orders through third-party apps, a not-uncommon tack among restaurants mindful of both profit margins and quality.
“For us last year, I cut off delivery business,” he said. “I was so busy here I didn’t want to hurt the inside-house business and get too greedy. So I cut off DoorDash, Uber, Lyft, Postmates. I told those guys we couldn’t make orders for them because I didn’t want to overwhelm the kitchen. I’m not about being greedy. I want this place to last forever.”
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But now carry-out and delivery is all they have.
You can order booze with the food — they have a small but formidable bar — but not many people are doing it, Armando said. The food business is doing OK. It takes a lot of work, a lot of promotion and a lot of trust that the customers who loved coming in to see Armando, drink his shots and eat the food will continue to support La Scarola from home.
“Right now, we’re making money to pay our guys,” he said. “I’m very proud. I got 17-18 guys working out of 28. Some of them chose not to come to work. They feel like they need to stay home. That’s fine. I’m not going to force anyone to come in.”
Like his friends, the Raskin family that owns Manny’s Deli, he’s making suburban food drops and that’s become a thriving side business. It started when a customer asked if they could get food in Schaumburg and Armando said if he could get 15 orders, he’d make the trip. Fifteen turned into 45.
On a now-quiet Grand Ave., La Scarola is relying on delivery and curbside pickup to stay afloat. (Lauren Comitor / The Athletic)
Then he went to Oak Brook and Highland Park and sold out those deliveries. Barrington, Naperville and Deer Park/Lake Zurich were this week’s drops. He even paid $50 for an Uber to deliver a $100 order to a suburban customer laid up after back surgery.
There are plenty of Italian restaurants in every suburb, but the allure of La Scarola remains strong and Armando is a big reason why.
Every inch of La Scarola’s wall is taken up by pictures of celebrities, be they actors, musicians, politicians and athletes.
On two separate occasions, sitting in different rooms, my wife and I sat near a picture of the actor Chris Klein.
Before the nearby West Loop became a hot spot, La Scarola was a Chicago hot spot. Athletes and celebrities are repeat customers because Armando treats his regulars like they are celebrities and celebrities like they are regulars.
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“Here’s my thing, famous people don’t get me wrong, I love to have them here, but we need to cater to the customers that come all the time,” he said. “It’s beautiful to have them come here, I love meeting all the actors, but the reason we’re open is because of the normal people, the local people.”
Former Bulls star Jimmy Butler remains a big fan of La Scarola and Armando. (Courtesy of Armando Vasquez)
“Anthony Rizzo comes in with his family and he always orders the same thing: rigatoni with meatballs and ricotta,” Armando said. “I call it Pasta alla Rizzo.”
Javy Báez is another fan of the food.
“Sometimes he calls me and asks to make his wife the appetizer she likes, Shrimp Armani,” he said. “He gets pasta with alfredo sauce.”
Last year, there was a hot rumor that Jimmy Butler and Jim Boylen were eating together at the restaurant during free-agent recruiting. Turns out, they were both just there for dinner.
“Jimmy Butler is a close friend of mine,” Armando said. “He’s an awesome kid. Down to earth. Sometimes he picks up food. One time, he came in with the whole team and my daughter was playing basketball at school, so I had someone get me a basketball. I asked Jimmy to sign it for my daughter. And he said I’m not signing it, just me. I’m getting everyone to sign it.”
As for Boylen, he might not be popular among Bulls fans, but he is a loyal friend to Armando.
“This is my thinking of Jim Boylen,” he said. “I know some classy guys, but he’s the coolest guy you ever met.”
Armando said if he asks Boylen to say hi to a customer, he’ll go table to table, having conversations, posing for pictures.
He also counts Ozzie Guillen and Kenny Williams as good friends.
“The first time I met Ozzie was when my son was born 14 years ago, April 17,” he said. “That day I got a phone call when we were sitting in the hospital room and people were coming to meet my son and bring flowers. ‘Hey dude, it’s Kenny Williams. You need to be in the restaurant tonight. Ozzie is coming to see you. You better be there.’”
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His wife wasn’t thrilled. But work is work. So Armando went in and he and Ozzie have been good friends ever since.
(I remember eating there once when Ozzie poked his head into the smaller room, saw the full crowd and yelled something about not eating in there. An f-bomb was likely thrown in for good measure.)
It’s not just Chicagoans who stop in. Armando has become so close to Guy Fieri, who featured La Scarola on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives,” that he went to Hollywood when Fieri got his star on the walk of fame.
“Tommy Lasorda is one of my great friends for 23 years,” Armando said. “You know how I take tequila shots. One time, he said, ‘Hey kid, bring me a shot let’s do a shot.’ So we do one and I’m walking around working, taking care of people and he said, ‘Hey kid, I’m ready for another one.’ So I said, ‘You can’t drink me under the table.’ But he kicked my ass. I said, ‘I can’t do anymore.’”
Armando can go on like this for hours, but here’s the thing. He’s not much of a sports fan.
“I don’t know much about sports,” he said. “My whole life has been about working. I had no time to memorize who the people are.”
One time a guy called in to say he was bringing in a celebrity, but he wanted it to be a surprise. Armando pushed for the identity of the mystery guest and when he was told it was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, “I didn’t make a sound.”
“I didn’t know who the guy was,” he said. “It didn’t make a difference to me.”
But Armando met the basketball legend and he liked him very much.
These stories come in waves during a half-hour conversation. As we talked, the phone rang in the background. People wanted to place orders for the night. Old friends wanted to talk.
“The response from people has been just amazing,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t realize how people think about you. Right now, all the messages I get from people, from Florida, Ohio, Italy, they send me messages, ‘I’m thinking about you.’ To me, that’s a great feeling. That’s what keeps me going. People that care for people.”
(Photo: Getty Images)
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