Portillo's

Portillo's is an interesting place. There's over thirty of them in the Chicago area, and as far as I know they're all decorated with some type of theme. For instance, the one here in Schaumburg is set in a 50's diner motif, much like, if not the same as, the one in the picture in my previous post. I haven't been to any of the other ones, but the one close to my hotel is large too, and just plain fun to go to. It's busy and crowded and the food is just smokin' good... Of course I say the "food", but I don't think I've ever eaten anything there except the Ital. beef sandwich, and the Chicago dogs. Now lemme tell ya about the Chicago dogs. They're your basic dog, BUT, they're piled on top with tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers, if my memory serves me right. It's like a salad on a dog, but even though it may sound weird, they're awesome... The picture I've included with today's entry is a phone picture of the sandwich I had today. It was just as good today as I remember, even to go. Speaking of "to go", even the drive through was interesting. The first thing I noticed driving up to the restaurant was the police presence out front directing traffic coming out of Portillo's! As I made my way around the back, I noticed at least three people walking down the line of cars as we made our way up to the windows. Well, two of them had headsets on and they were there to take orders on the fly. The third person was a guy with a wad of money and a credit card machine who would complete your order as you continued to drive up to the window. There was actually another guy taking the orders out to other cars that had to wait, I'm assuming for larger orders... I picked mine up at the window after only waiting a little bit. Over all it was quite the smooth operation... If you've made it this far, you no doubt know more about Portillo's than you'd like, but I tell you, it's worth even hearing about those Italian beef sandwiches. I just had to write that one more time.

Tomorrow I may head over to Michigan after class for a weekend road trip. If it works out I'll be visiting G-money's (aka Genevieve) home where her mom and dad still live near Detroit (but, from what I've heard, far enough away to be nice...). I hear that her sister Maria lives there sometimes too, when she's not in Germany, or camping. But she's not there now, so I won't get to say hi to her this time. Her brother and his family still live nearby though, so it'll be cool to see them again... I'll update my blog again if I end up going over to visit, and hopefully have some pics to upload...