The growth of Chicago-based Italian beef sandwich and hot dog chain Portillo’s has been hindered by its high-profile, high-dollar expansion into Texas, CEO Michael Osanloo said during an earnings call in early August 2025.
Flat growth in the Lone Star State from the second quarter of 2025 is “raising questions about whether the 95-unit chain is growing too fast,” Restaurant Business reported in a story called Texas loses its taste for Portillo’s.
It took 60 years for Portillo’s to make it to Texas. When the company agreed to expand — specifically, to Dallas-Fort Worth first — it did so in dramatic fashion, with seven restaurants open in the region today and two more on the way.
Portillo’s early 2023 debut in The Colony was one of the biggest restaurant expansions of the year in Dallas-Fort Worth.
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“This is one of the greatest real estate sites I’ve personally ever seen,” Osanloo said during an earnings call in March 2022 ahead of the opening. “I think it’s going to be a world-class opening for us.”
The restaurant in the $1.5 billion Grandscape development averaged $48,000 in sales per day in its first month and a half, QSR reported. If sustained, that would equal $17 million per year, Osanloo said in March 2023.
Cue the “everything’s bigger in Texas” tropes.
Nick Tague (center) and Ely Martinez, both Chicago natives, hold up a one and two with their fingers as the first and second guests walking into the new Portillo’s in The Colony. It was the first Portillo’s in Texas, open 60 years after the company was founded in Chicago.
Liesbeth Powers / Staff Photographer
Even Osanloo knew at the time that $17 million a year was “a crazy number,” he told investors in an earnings call in 2023. It was the company’s No. 1 restaurant in terms of performance at the time, meaning The Colony was “matching the volumes of restaurants in Chicago that have been open for decades.”
“It’s definitely coming down,” he clarified at the time, “but we feel really good that this restaurant will significantly exceed our underwriting expectations and set us up for further success in Texas as we continue to expand.”
Fast-forward to August 2025, and Osanloo has quieted his former bullishness on D-FW and Texas. He believes the company was “lulled into a false sense of security with the success of the Colony.”
“It was just an enormous opening that almost broke the restaurant,” he said in the Aug. 5 earnings call, referencing the 2023 opening in The Colony. He did not cite how much was spent on marketing.
The company then “tamped down all marketing,” meaning fewer dollars went to other expansions, like in Houston.
Employees cheer during the grand opening of Portillo’s in Allen in September 2023.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
So did Portillo’s build too many restaurants, too quickly, in North Texas, one analyst asked on the Aug. 5 call?
“I think it’s a very fair question, and I don’t know if I have a clean answer for that,” Osanloo said on the call. “… It was too many too quickly. The flip side is that we need to build awareness.”
The Italian Beef sandwich at Portillo’s is the thing to get, the CEO told Dallas diners.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
Indeed, one of the ways Osanloo spread the Portillo’s name was by explaining the historic brand to Texans who had never visited. The company’s “Beef Bus” was parked at festivals and in shopping centers, and employees shared the story of how founder Dick Portillo started with just $1,100 in 1963.
Osanloo had a message for Texans in 2022, before the opening:
“It is not a hot dog place,” he said in a Dallas Morning News interview. “It is an Italian beef place.
“If people are coming to Portillo’s and they’re eating one thing, I’d say get a beef sandwich. It’ll blow your mind.”
The News captured photos of the long lines in The Colony. Police officers guided traffic as Chicago ex-pats and curious Texans waited in the cold, buzzing over what to order.
Spillover from the drive-through lane at Portillo’s in The Colony in 2023 bled out onto a road lined with cones, to ease traffic.
Liesbeth Powers / Staff Photographer
Next came Allen and Arlington, restaurants that “can’t open fast enough” to meet demand, The News reported. Others are now open in Denton, Fort Worth, Grapevine and Mansfield.
But flashy restaurant openings in Dallas-Fort Worth aren’t always sustainable. Gino’s, a deep-dish pizza place from Chicago, couldn’t make it in Texas.
Portillo’s adjusted growth expectations, lowering projections from 10 to 12% this year to 5 to 7%.
Despite two coming-soon restaurants expected in Grand Prairie and at DFW Airport, Osanloo said he will not be “pushing the gas” in North Texas.
“We have built some great restaurants in Texas, and they’ve just started off slow,” he said.
“We haven’t given up on them.”