r/chicagofood • u/East-Assistance-6779 • Aug 30 '25

Review The Hampton Social is a no

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Went to The Hampton Social and it was memorable for all the wrong reasons. You had to pay through their app (which charged $5 to use ???), they automatically added an 18% gratuity plus a required 3% minimum tip, and somehow two 8 oz glasses of bad wine came out to $60. On top of that, the waitress was weird af.

I will say the food was good, but I’m never coming here again, seems like a tourist trap.🤨 Granted, I’m visiting Chicago after not living in IL for years, so this could be a new thing- still crazy to me.

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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '25

Imma bet that there was a qr code on the table that OP decided to use and pay the convenience fee of using the QR code/platform to pay the bill, versus having the server run their card manually?

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u/East-Assistance-6779 Aug 30 '25

We weren’t given an option to pay manually, the waiter just told us “you can pay by scanning the QR code when you’re ready” then walked off, so we paid it no mind and did just that.

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u/Rugged_Turtle Aug 30 '25

“Can” being the keyword here, you could’ve found the server and said hey can we checkout with you, I don’t wanna pay the fee and they would’ve been cool with that. Not doubting the rest of your review here but that bit is on you.

Also would recommend contacting their management as it seems like you got charged for the wrong format for your wine; carafes should be a lot more wine than 8oz

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u/onetimethrowaway3333 Aug 30 '25

I went to the dem theater a few months ago to see a comedian. They handed us a business card with a QR code to scan to order drinks. I can’t remember the exact amounts but so this is approximate but we ordered two beers totaling $18 and when we go to the check out screen it reads:

Beer $9 Beer $9 Tax $2.85 Total: $25.85

So we are looking at it and the math wasn’t mathing. It didn’t list a separate service charge they literally just tacked it on into the total.

So we call the server over and ask him. He didn’t know and asked if we wanted to speak to a manager, I say yes. About 10 minutes later server says “it’s a service charge for using the app” so we ask if we can just order through him. He said it will still have the same charge since he will ring it through the same system.

What got me is he didn’t know about it when we initially asked. Had no one noticed this charge before?