Portillo's Restaurants
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Portillo's is a chain of restaurants that specialize in serving Chicago-style food. Portillo's is located primarily throughout the Chicago metropolitan area.
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[edit] Origins
Owner and founder Dick Portillo opened his first restaurant from a trailer with no running water in 1963 in Villa Park, Illinois. Today, each location has different themed decor that reflects Dick's love of history and for his love of Chicago. By design, no two Portillo's are exactly alike.
With well over 3,000 employees, The Portillo Restaurant Group is in fact the largest privately-owned restaurant company in the Midwest. It owns and operates five different restaurant concepts which include Portillo's, Barney's, Barnelli's, Key Wester Fish & Pasta House / Hemingway's Bar, and Luigi's House, as well as a catering division, Portillo's Home Kitchen, each within 40+ units. The Portillo Restaurant Group is based in Oak Brook, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago.
[edit] Menu
Menu items include Chicago-style hot dogs & Polish sausages, Italian beef sandwiches, chili, salads, and hamburgers that can be topped with mustard, relish, onions, tomatoes, pickle and sport peppers, cucumbers, ketchup and cheese. Side items include french fries, cheese fries, onion rings, chicken tenders, and soup. The dessert menu includes chocolate cake (which can be served in shake form), lemon cake (discontinued indefinitely), Malibu Rum cake, strawberry shortcake and cheesecake at select locations.
At some Portillo's locations, you can purchase food from either Barnelli's restaurant or from Portillo's, since they share space in the same restaurant. After getting your food, you have your choice of where to sit among many tables. At the Portillo's location in downtown Chicago, located at the intersection of West Ontario and North Clark Streets, the tables are situated on two different floors.
Portillo's offers novelty gifts such as schooners, baseball caps, key fobs, travel mugs, window decals, license plate holders, and t-shirts.
[edit] Outside Chicago
Portillo's has been operating in Southern California since October 11, 2005, in Buena Park, southeast of Los Angeles, and recently opened a store in Merrillville, Indiana, just east of Chicago.
Portillo's had previously licensed restaurants using its recipes and theme in Tokyo, Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Japanese restaurants however did not fully follow the same tradition as the Chicago area stores and all four eventually closed.
