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Where other locals like Wolfy’s and Gene & Jude's or Al’s Italian Beef stayed local, Portillo’s branched out, moved beyond the city limits, and in 2014, the company was sold by Portillo to the equity firm Berkshire Partners in a deal that was reportedly worth close to $1 billion. But sure enough, three years later, when they moved into an an actual space where people could sit down or use the restroom, something must have clicked.įlash-forward to 2017: Portillo’s has over 35 locations in the Chicagoland area, California, Arizona, Minnesota, and Florida. Called “The Dog House,” Portillo’s first place didn’t have a bathroom or running water, not really the way you see a hot dog empire starting.

#Vienna beef hot dogs walmart plus#

All that, plus you you never put ketchup on a hot dog, and just about everybody has an opinion on Portillo's.įounded in 1963, Dick Portillo invested $1,100 in a small trailer in Villa Park, a town originally developed as a home for the employees who worked in the Ovaltine plant.

#Vienna beef hot dogs walmart series#

Nobody ever likes the mayor (even though Chicago mayors sometimes stay in power for decades at a time), everybody knows Michael Jordan is the greatest ever, the Cubs fans think last year’s World Series win was the greatest miracle in the history of humanity, and White Sox fans think Cubs fans are annoying. If you had to pick the things Chicagoans are most passionate about, encased meats and Italian beefs would probably rank somewhere near the top alongside sports and politics.

Scott Fitzgerald story-that are calling for you to at least visit. Some have signs surrounded by light bulbs, like Mister J’s Dawg & Burger, or the Gold Coast Dogs logo-two red frankfurters stepping out for a night on the town decked out like characters from a F. Fluky’s and Wolfy’s, Herm’s Place and Poochie’s in my hometown of Skokie, or any other place in the Chicagoland area that had the Vienna Beef logo of a blue V with a red grill fork holding a sausage set against the mustard yellow, a signifier that the place probably did their hot dogs the right way. But I also spent a good portion of the drive telling her about all the spots where we used to get hot dogs. I pointed out houses Frank Lloyd Wright designed, the place where I saw Chicago Bears legend Walter Payton driving in his black Lamborghini, and the parking lots of my teenage years where my friends and I would chug lukewarm beers and skateboard until the cops showed up. The perfect ending to a drive around the Chicagoland area on a flawless summer day. The only thing I knew for sure was we were going to drive down the winding part of Sheridan Road known as “the ravines,” the house I lived in when I was a baby, and, most importantly, the Portillo’s across from Hawthorn Mall in Vernon Hills, Illinois. I had no real specific route in mind when I took my wife to see where I grew up.