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.
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…