The woman in line behind me at the new location of the Chicago fast-food juggernaut Portillo’s in Schertz drove in from Austin just to get a fix. She’s from Chicago; her husband is not. But there he was, toting their little schnauzer in his arms. Against his will, if anybody’s asking.
But people do crazy things for love, and Chicagoans have a special place in their hearts for Italian beef sandwiches and those Chicago hot dogs with Day-Glo relish and sport peppers on a poppyseed bun. They’ve been lining up for Portillo’s since 1963, since way before it expanded to more than 100 locations across the country. Even Texas. And now just a few miles northeast of San Antonio in Schertz.
We get it. We have a cult of our own. It’s called Whataburger.
The Chicago fast food chain Portillo’s has opened its first restaurant in the San Antonio area in Schertz. Customers lined up at the Schertz location Sunday, just ahead of the chain’s Tuesday grand opening. With more than 100 locations nationwide, Portillo’s is famous for Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago-style hot dogs. (Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News)
And for all of us in San Antonio, I’ll spare you the ignominy of saying it wrong. It’s not Por-ti-yos, with that graceful lilt of the unpronounced yet ever-present double L’s. They pronounce it the way a kid learning to read would say it: Por-TILL-o’s. We’ll just have to make do.
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Anyway, it was the Austin couple’s second trip to Portillo’s in one week. This was Sunday, a few soft-opening days ahead of today’s official grand opening in Schertz, the chain’s first location in the San Antonio area. The line outside the door was 35 people deep, with about that many inside, snaking their way toward the counter like a ride at Disneyland. Outside, the cars filling up the double-lane drive-thru extended all the way to the back of the parking lot as a sheriff’s deputy directed traffic like they do at a megachurch on Sundays.
The Chicago fast food chain Portillo’s has opened its first restaurant in the San Antonio area in Schertz. With more than 100 locations nationwide, Portillo’s is famous for Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago-style hot dogs. (Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News)
Today’s grand-opening party kicks off at 4 p.m., with a DJ, a photo booth, giveaways and the food that makes people drive in from an hour away, then stand in line for another hour, just like I did.
So what inspires that kind of following? Is it that Chicago dog with the Day-Glo relish and the poppy seeds? Or the cheese sauce (NOT queso, the Austin pilgrim emphasized) to go with your crinkle fries? Or the Chocolate Cake Shake with a happy birthday’s worth of cake whirled right in? Or is it that razor-thin beef sandwich, the one we’re all experts about because of that TV show “The Bear”?
The Chicago fast food chain Portillo’s has opened its first restaurant in the San Antonio area in Schertz. With more than 100 locations nationwide, Portillo’s is famous for Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago-style hot dogs. (Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News)
I tried all of it, plus a lush slab of chocolate cake; a perfectly acceptable fried chicken sandwich; a wet mess of a thing they call a chopped salad; and onion rings stuck together like they’d thawed a minute too long in the freezer bag they came from.
Obviously, I didn’t like those last two. But who orders a salad at Portillo’s anyway? Especially one with lazy iceberg lettuce, tiny tubes of pasta and dried-out chicken that form a bowl of flavorless monotone confetti. The onion rings are exactly the ones we’ve been stuck with since the dawn of fast food. Just like crinkle fries, the most try-hard of all fries, hoping the ridges will distract us from the cardboard color and texture, no matter how much of that orange goop you dunk them in. Queso or not, Portillo’s cheese sauce is the saddest thing since concession-stand nachos.
The Chicago fast food chain Portillo’s has opened its first restaurant in the San Antonio area in Schertz. With more than 100 locations nationwide, Portillo’s is famous for Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago-style hot dogs. (Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News)
But rising up through the signal and noise of the Portillo’s hive-mind came the dawn of understanding for me. A dawn the size and shape of Italian beef ($8.59) and Chicago dogs ($3.99).
There’s no aggressive barbecue-style seasoning in that beef. Its passive give-a-damn attitude is what makes it an Italian beef. That, and the whole soft and juicy thing, like an earth-tone canvas for whatever you put on top. Get it dry and they’ll leave it alone; get it regular and there’s some broth and pickled giardiniera; order it “dipped,” and they’ll slosh it in gravy or give it to you on the side, which is the way you should do it, because the bread didn’t exactly come from the bakery next door.
I mean, they call it gravy. It’s really just broth like you’d drink when you’re sick. But if this is what I get when I’m sick, let’s not call the doctor just yet. I’ll just sit with it, me and my sandwich and my big dumb smile.
The Chicago fast food chain Portillo’s has opened its first restaurant in the San Antonio area in Schertz. With more than 100 locations nationwide, Portillo’s is famous for Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago-style hot dogs. Store merchandise includes baby clothes. (Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News)
Even better? The Italian beef with a fat link of Italian sausage. It’s just $1.20 more, and worth every dime, every extra calorie.
I appreciate a good Chicago dog the way I appreciate a good bean-and-cheese taco. The dog has more going on, with the bright relish and sliced tomatoes and pickled peppers and a big kosher pickle on a poppyseed bun. But it’s still a matter of staying true to the form. Like using a proper Vienna dog, with its snap-crunch casing and ballpark flavor. And at just $3.99, it’s the best value in the shop.
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If my word’s not good enough, I’ll step aside and let Dwight Greene take the stage. He’s a native Chicagoan with 14 years in San Antonio. He and his wife, Tiera Greene, and their toddler, Kai’ree, were posted up at the table behind me.
The Chicago fast food chain Portillo’s has opened its first restaurant in the San Antonio area in Schertz. With more than 100 locations nationwide, Portillo’s is famous for Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago-style hot dogs. (Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News)
Dwight Greene figures he’s eaten at just about all the Portillo’s locations around Chicago. His go-to order is the Italian beef combo, dipped in gravy, with cheese sauce. And a Cake Shake. Schertz isn’t Chicago, but for him, the new Portillo’s is filling a Chicago-shaped void in his family’s life.
“My wife says she gives it a 10 out of 10. She actually said she think it tastes better than the ones at home,” he said. Her go-to is an Italian beef, dipped, with hot peppers. “I’m not gonna go that far. I’m just gonna say they met the expectation I hoped for.”
Portillo’s: 18678 Interstate 35 N. Frontage Road, Schertz, 830-202-2550, portillos.com. Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
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This article originally published at Inside the cult of Portillo’s as its first San Antonio-area restaurant opens.