Portillo's Restaurants
Portillos Inc serves the Chicago street food industry through high-energy and multichannel restaurants designed to ignite the senses and create memorable dining experiences. It owns and operates fast-casual restaurants in the United States, along with two food production commissaries in Illinois. Its menu includes hot dogs, beef and sausage sandwiches, sandwiches and ribs, salads, burgers, chicken, Barnelli's pasta, sides and soup, and desserts and shakes.www.portillos.com
80
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18
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16
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Search complete. 80 mentions across 18 episodes found for "Portillo's Restaurants".
Sep 26, 2026
George HahnNARRATOR
Some of these businesses are famous.
George HahnNARRATOR
In nineteen sixty-three, former Marine Dick Portillo opened a hot dog stand in a twelve-foot trailer with one thousand dollars in savings and a small investment from his brother, about eleven thousand in today's dollars.
George HahnNARRATOR
By twenty fourteen, he'd grown Portillo's to thirty-eight locations in four states, generating three hundred million dollars in annual revenue and carrying no debt.
George HahnNARRATOR
That year, Portillo sold his business to Berkshire Partners for nearly one billion dollars.
George HahnNARRATOR
In twenty seventeen, three friends pooled nine hundred dollars and started frying Nashville-style hot chicken at a pop-up located in an East Hollywood parking lot.
George HahnNARRATOR
Eight years later, Dave's Hot Chicken, with three hundred and ninety locations worldwide, was acquired by a private equity firm for one billion dollars.
GriffHOST
I've never had to request my combo to be dipped.
GriffHOST
This is my second time at the Portillo's in Tomball.
GriffHOST
It came dry.
GriffHOST
I need to remember to ask for it wet.
GriffHOST
All right, Mike, don't threaten to come to my house.
GriffHOST
I don't like that.
GriffHOST
I'm in Tucson and everyone raves about this place called Luke's, but I still prefer Portillo's and at least it's consistent and tastes exactly like
speaker_2NARRATOR
home.
Cody JosephHOST
So we're driving on the 60.
Cody JosephHOST
And, you know, I've been talking about Portillo's a lot lately.
Cody JosephHOST
All right.
Cody JosephHOST
And that is the Chicago hot dog restaurant.
Cody JosephHOST
Yeah.
Cody JosephHOST
So we're like trying to figure out where to stop, me and Schlicko, who was with me.
Cody JosephHOST
And he said, well, you know, we can stop at Portillo's if you really want.
Cody JosephHOST
I'm not even talking about that.
Brandon DayHOST
...
Brandon DayHOST
Italian beef sandwich from Portillo's.
Rogelio CastilloHOST
Oh, dude.
Rogelio CastilloHOST
Oh, sp- yeah, Portillo's, uh, I haven't been there in a long time.
Rogelio CastilloHOST
Portillo's, by the way, for people out there who are not familiar with Portillo's-
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Mike LaVistaHOST
So Bill and I, when we first, this is a story worth telling if you're in Chicago.
Mike LaVistaHOST
After this podcast, we're going to Portillo's because that's the first place we ever had lunch together.
Mike LaVistaHOST
And the lure of the combo sandwich is going to be affecting our conversation throughout this whole thing.
Bill HimmelsteinGUEST
As long as we can get out of here in a timely manner to go get that Portillo's.
Mike LaVistaHOST
The clock is ticking.
Mike LaVistaHOST
So for people who are new, give us a little background on Tenant Advisory Group and what you guys are up to in the world.
34 MINS LATER
Mike LaVistaHOST
So good to spend some time with you.
Mike LaVistaHOST
Thanks for being on the podcast today.
Ryan KoenigsbergHOST
tavern? No, that's deep dish.
Ryan KoenigsbergHOST
Portillo's?
Scott ProcterHOST
Have you
Ryan KoenigsbergHOST
never
Scott ProcterHOST
had Portillo's? No.
Scott ProcterHOST
Yeah, bro, we might have to make that happen.
Scott ProcterHOST
I wasn't aware that you never
Ryan KoenigsbergHOST
had Portillo's.
Eric ZwickGUEST
But it's just, like, not sufficient to characterize inequality, to solve our fiscal problems, and so on, to focus only on them when this huge class gets so much less attention.
Luigi ZingalesHOST
So one thing that I find strange is you, you emphasize a lot that we shouldn't focus on the, the billionaire or the hundred millionaire, but then all of your examples basically in the book are in that category, starting with, uh, my favorite one are the hotdog stand, Portillo.
Eric ZwickGUEST
So Portillo, it's an amazing story of, like, a Chicago fast casual hotdog stand restauranteur that over forty, fifty years grew a business into being able to sell it to a private equity investor for around a billion dollars.
Eric ZwickGUEST
You know, Musk and Bezos and these types are, like, hundred billionaires, and if we look at wealth tax proposals and these kinds of things, it's really about the hundred billionaires, like a handful of people, not this larger group.
Eric ZwickGUEST
But, you know, we found some of these stories like Portillo's quite interesting, uh, and illustrative, but a lot of the stories that we tell are people who made fifty, seventy-five million dollars, um, selling, you know, ready-to-order quiche or running a series of franchises of waxing and tanning salons, making a five dollar toothbrush.
Eric ZwickGUEST
Uh, these are mere hundred millionaires, right? So I think we're trying interested in up and down the scale with, like, a threshold basically above which most Americans would agree that this person seems quite rich.
Eric ZwickGUEST
And, uh, I think that's, like, a pretty interesting set of people to, to, to learn about.
Eric ZwickGUEST
It's rich and textured and, and nuanced, which, you know, in the comic book morality of our times is not necessarily what we're used to.
Josh HadleyHOST
And it was that opportunity met preparation and the stars aligned and they scaled quickly and congrats to them.
Josh HadleyHOST
i want to provide reassurance to the 1 000 entrepreneurs that are still in the day-to-day grind that aren't seeing these massive leaps and bounds and changes in their business overnight and that's okay and that's the journey that i am currently on and that's where i'm speaking from today is also like preaching to the choir myself saying hey it's okay OK, here's my favorite like business story that I've recently learned about Portillo's.
Josh HadleyHOST
OK, so they are a hot dog stand.
Josh HadleyHOST
The owner of Portillo's, he's a overnight success.
Josh HadleyHOST
It only took him 40 years.
Josh HadleyHOST
So if you're listening to this, are you willing to stick with it for 40 years? that dude kept knocking down one constraint after another with his sledgehammer and it probably hit wall after wall after wall and at times it looked like there was no visible progress being made But yeah, he kept going at it.
14 MINS LATER
Josh HadleyHOST
I've had that happen so many times.
Josh HadleyHOST
And often the best strategy in business is just stay in the game.
Paul HendricksGUEST
And, you know, I'll go do my own little thing.
Paul HendricksGUEST
Go to Portillo's.
Paul HendricksGUEST
I was going
Tim ZahnerHOST
to ask, what's the food that you have to
Paul HendricksGUEST
I love it.
Paul HendricksGUEST
Vegan tacos.
Paul HendricksGUEST
So I'll go to Portillo's and I'll get a, they got a vegetarian dog.
Paul HendricksGUEST
Okay.
JoshHOST
what MCP character
GarrettGUEST
do you think this is? Again, we were at Portis and we were having other arguments and Eric, who his last name is not Wong, which for the record, I learned at the Portillo.
NigelHOST
Wait, you really thought his last name was Wong?
GarrettGUEST
I mean, look, I'm not going to sit here and question what people are like.
GarrettGUEST
MCP.
GarrettGUEST
That's like low hanging fruit.
GarrettGUEST
Eventually, like we had most of the people at the table and at a Portillo's at like 9 p.m. at night.
GarrettGUEST
And they're like
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