Portillo's Avondale — Restaurant in Avondale

Grossly incompetent staff and underwhelming food. We had to go through the drive through since we had just finished grocery shopping. We established it was our first visit and Natalia handed us a menu then quickly asked for our order... We had an idea of what we wanted and after a quick look at the menu, relayed it to her. She then asked if we wanted the cheese for the fries “on the side”, as if the option was on the fries or on the side. My husband said on the side. She couldn’t answer a basic question (type/style of relish used) and seemed to be confused by my request to not have relish or sport peppers on two of the hot dogs. She gives us the total and I find it a bit higher than expected, but had no clue of any prices because we were unable to see any menu with prices listed. She hands me my card back and walks away...guess she’s done her job. I pull forward and wait to approach the window. A few moments later, Natalia walks up to my window to tell me that she charged us for too many hot dogs; then struggles to find out how I’ll be reimbursed before handing me my receipt. Again, once the information is relayed she just walks away... This is when I find out that the cheese that neither my husband or I actually want costs extra. Cool. We get to the window and the young man removes the order number from our car, saying nothing to us as we wait. He quotes the original order and I ask for clarity since we did not want the extra food. He says he didn’t see the correction and hands us the bag. As we’re pulling away he invites us to come back again. Maybe we’ll try our luck dining in, but certainly not drive through. And that was just ordering and receiving the food. The fries are delicious and were the only thing I enjoyed about this experience, so good on Portillo’s for that. But of course my hot dog order is wrong... both of my hot dogs included sport peppers, neither had pickle, one had a small amount of mustard with an excess of large onion chunks and the other had no onion with an excess amount of mustard. Don’t get me started on the quality of the hot dog itself or the soggy dough being passed off as a bun. Having heard great things, I want for today’s visit to have been an anomaly. I’ll give it one more shot before swearing it...

This will be the last time I just settle for what was open. Was looking for lunch in the area, and I fortunately places like red Robin were closed at the time, so my fiance and I decided to go here instead. And let me tell you, the visuals of this place is about all it's good for. Ordered double back on cheese burger, an Italian beef sandwich (that these guys are supposed to have the best) 2 orders of onion rings and a side salad with ranch. And that's about as far as it went for a good experience.

So first, there's some for in back handling food with like 4 inch long nails. Cometely unsanitary. The salad came with house dressing instead of ranch. When picked up the order I asked for ranch for the onion rings and was met with a death glare and one tiny cup of ranch. The onion rings were so over done the breading was like chewing on razor blades. The Italian beef was so oily it couldn't be eaten, and literally only good thing about it was the spicy pepper blend on top, and the burger was the most flavorless burger I've ever eaten in my life. the bottom bun was so saturated with grease, it stuck to the box and had no char broil taste to it at all. If I wasn't mistaken, I would have sworn this was just microwaved patty. Literally the strongest flavor on it was the bread. I used to think the only place I'd never waste my money on was whataburger. This place got added to the list, especially being we couldn't even eat half our meal. I wish I could give zero stars, especially being there were 2 other employees hovering over our table watching us as we ate. Never again will my time or money be wasted at this place. I thought things were supposed to get better with time. This is...

Now this right here is the American Dream, folks. It’s really easy, so pay attention.

Step 1: Open hot dog trailer. Step 2: Expand to multiple hot dog restaurants. Step 3: Expand a little bit more. Step 4: Sell out to a venture capitalist management group.

It’s so easy, even an idiot could do it.

But remember, you’re not just selling hot dogs… you’re selling dreams. And Americans dream big. Because they big people. Because they love to eat deep-fried, calorie-dense, sugar laden fast food. In fact, Americans want it so badly, they’ll even pay extra for someone to bring it to them. And Portillo’s has a whole separate room just to handle all of those to-go and delivery orders. They straight up dishin’ dreams up in this place. I had to try it out.

What blows my mind is the staff told us “that’s gonna take ten minutes to make” when we ordered a chili cheese dog. When it arrived ten minutes later, we looked at it and wondered “what part of that took ten minutes to make?” Truly, mind blown.

And then the Italian beef didn’t even come with peppers on it. It was meat, a soggy bun, and that’s it. For $10. No one asked if I wanted peppers. I just assumed it came with them. I was so confused and disappointed, because neither the chili cheese dog (that took ten minutes to make) nor the Italian beef looked anything like the pictures. No onions on the dog, no peppers on the beef….

And that’s literally about sums up the American Dream for ya. It never really turns out to be as good as the...