Last year wasn’t easy for many restaurants, and that includes Portillo’s.
Early into 2025, the fast casual faced public calls for change from activist investor Engaged Capital, which described the chain’s strategy as outdated and ineffective. Portillo’s later struck a cooperation agreement with the firm, allowing it to gain more representation on the board of directors.
The company then revealed later in the year that it was struggling in the Texas market—after a blazing start—because it placed too many restaurants in the state too quickly. In response, the brand revised its growth outlook and lowered revenue, EBITDA margin, and same-store sales expectations. There was also a call for simplifying operations, meaning the discontinuation of Portillo’s publicized breakfast pilot.
New leadership is on the way as well. Last year saw the resignation of CEO Michael Osanloo, who had been with the company for seven years. Chairman Michael A. Miles Jr. is currently serving as interim CEO.
Same-store sales fell 0.5 percent in 2025, fueled by 3.2 percent pricing, offset by a 2.5 percent drop in transactions and 1.2 percent decrease in mix. In Q4, comps lowered 3.3 percent, driven by 2.3 percent price, mitigated by a 3.3 percent decrease in transactions and a 2.3 percent dip in mix.
Still, Portillo’s is one of the highest-volume restaurants in the country. The brand boasts an $8.6 million AUV ($3.7 million from dine-in/carryout, $3.4 million from drive-thru, and $1.5 million from delivery/catering).
The company remains a true growth story. Portillo’s was founded in 1963 in Chicago. It didn’t expand outside of the Chicagoland market until 2005 when it entered California. That was followed by Indiana (2006), Arizona (2013), Wisconsin and Florida (2016), Minnesota (2017), Iowa (2019), Michigan (2021), Texas (2023), and Georgia (2025).
These outside markets have become strong over the years. The initial restaurants planted in California, Indiana, and Arizona all performed at a high level in 2025:
| Location | Opening Year | 2025 Sales |
| Buena Park, California | 2005 | $10.2 million |
| Merrillville, Indiana | 2006 | $11 million |
| Scottsdale, Arizona | 2013 | $7.2 million |
| Tempe, Arizona | 2013 | $8 million |
And here’s how Portillo’s unit count has trended since 2014, the year it was bought by private-equity firm Berkshire Partners.
- 2014: 38
- 2015: 41
- 2016: 46
- 2017: 52
- 2018: 57
- 2019: 62
- 2020: 64
- 2021: 69 (Portillo’s files for IPO and goes public)
- 2022: 72
- 2023: 84
- 2024: 94
- 2025: 102
The plan is to open eight restaurants each in 2026 and 2027.
What Happened in Texas?
Portillo’s is hoping for better results this year, and a big part of that will be fixing Texas.
Right now, the awareness isn’t there. In Chicagoland, where Portillo’s was founded, the chain enjoys 80 percent brand awareness. In Houston—where the chain built five restaurants in 12 months within a 20-mile radius—awareness is around 20 percent, and in Dallas, it’s just a little higher at approximately 30 percent.
The five restaurants in Houston collectively earn the same volume that Portillo’s would expect from two units.
“So the focus in ’26 is how do we take this special brand that we know is great—the food’s great—and tell people about that and drive that trial and awareness in those newer markets,” says CFO Michelle Hook.
Last fall, Portillo’s hired CMO Denise Lauer, who previously served in the same role at Marco’s Pizza, to spearhead marketing efforts in the Lone Star State.
Lauer says attracting customers begins with offering experiences. The chain’s food truck is currently in Houston and will be in Texas for most of 2026. The brand will continue to bring the mobile restaurant to community events, ensuring more potential customers can try the food and be educated on the menu. Portillo’s also plans to invest more in local marketing, especially the Houston area, and leverage paid media, social media, and influencer marketing to “really help guests discover the magic of Portillo’s,” the CMO says.
Another vehicle for guest growth is Portillo’s Perks, the chain’s app-less loyalty program. Instead of the typical points-based system, the platform exists in customers’ digital wallets and distributes rewards based on frequency and previous orders. After rolling out in March 2025, the program has over 2 million members and represents about 10 percent of sales.
Hook poses a scenario where a Houston-based customer, who signed up for the rewards platform, may not be familiar with the menu and decides to try the burger to start. Through the Perks program, Portillo’s can contact this same guest and provide an offer to try the Italian beef sandwich or Chicago-style hot dog because it can see in the data that the guest hasn’t tried the products yet.
Lauer adds that Perks isn’t supposed to be a discount program. It’s meant to tap into Portillo’s “vast menu to deliver exciting offers, exclusive looks, and previews to our guests.”
“Our brand is naturally an experiential brand,” the CMO says. “When you go into our restaurants from what you hear, what you smell, there’s a bit of theater in the way that we make our food to order.”
Renewed Growth Strategy
Back in 2023, Portillo’s announced it had room for a minimum of 920 U.S. stores after previously putting the figure at 600 during its IPO process in 2021.
But the fast casual is committed to learning its lessons from Texas. The mindset has shifted.
“We’re not worried about where’s the next 900 Portillo’s,” Hook says. “We’re looking at where’s the next 50 to 100 Portillo’s right now.”
The new objective is to spread out restaurants and move at a more measured pace. Whereas Portillo’s focused mostly on the Sun Belt, the chain is now opening all areas of the country to find sites with high demand.
The first example of this strategy is the company’s recent opening in Kennesaw, Georgia, which marked store No. 100 and the chain’s third-biggest opening in company history. Placer.ai data shows that some customers drove hours to visit the restaurant—not only from other parts of Georgia, but nearby states like Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The unit earned $2.2 million worth of sales during its first seven weeks despite not being open on Thanksgiving or Christmas and not turning on third-party delivery yet. In the first week of 2026, the location hauled in $302,000.
While stellar, the results aren’t unusual for Portillo’s when it enters a new market:
| Location | Year Opened | Sales in First Seven Weeks |
| Brandon, Florida | 2016 | $2.3 million |
| Brookfield, Wisconsin | 2016 | $2.1 million |
| Woodbury, Minnesota | 2017 | $1.9 million |
| Fishers, Indiana | 2017 | $2.1 million |
| Davenport, Iowa | 2019 | $1.6 million |
| Sterling Heights, Michigan | 2021 (off-premises only during COVID) | $1.3 million |
| The Colony, Texas | 2023 | $2.3 million |
| Kennesaw, Georgia | 2025 | $2.2 million |
The next move is to allow this new store to settle in. Then Portillo’s will open another Georgia-based location in 2027, but more than 40 minutes away so they’re not stacked on top of each other.
“You’re going to see more territories open up for Portillo’s, and as we do that, then we can start to infill in existing markets so you’re not going to see—as an example—five in one market in 12 months,” Hook says. “You’re going to see more newer markets. So when you think about the class of ’28 as an example, you might see five new markets come into play in the class of 28, which would be a new strategy for us.”
Portillo’s also isn’t in the business of building large restaurants anymore, relatively speaking. Gone are the days of 9,000-square-foot operations. The Kennesaw unit is 6,250 square feet and represents the brand’s restaurant of the future 1.0 prototype. In fact, all eight units opened in 2025 were under this new design.
The chain also has drive-thru-only restaurants and debuted its first inline location last year in Florida. In 2027, Portillo’s will introduce restaurant of the future 2.0, which will be around 5,000 square feet.
“We have a lot of format flexibility now, so if we want to go up first in market at 6,250 square feet, we have that format,” Hook says. “We want to start to infill, we have that format. We want to make sure that we’re focusing on the four-wall returns and the unit economics and those cash-on-cash returns. And so that’s a main focus as well. But we’ve done a lot of great work to get the box size right-sized for the volumes that we believe we’re going to be doing.”
Hook is bullish about Portillo’s future.
She emphasizes that the brand isn’t within a category that’s saturated, like burgers, chicken, or Mexican. That leaves a lot of room for growth across the country.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunity for this brand, and we got to, again, make sure we’re growing it responsibly while at the same time continuing to build the core and get the guest frequency going there. But I think this is a special brand,” Hook says. “I think we have a lot of opportunity. We’re just getting started.”
