Portillo's Clermont — Restaurant in Florida

Update: Docked another star because whomever replies to the reviews asked me to send an email to the support email. Did as they asked just to have them send a cookie cutter reply about how they forward the info to the manager. What's the point of having me send all that over just to get some basic reply back. Whomever replied to my post could have forwarded my feedback and they had already given me the basic apology reply. Asking me to do extra work for them just to have someone at corporate do what they could have done was unnecessary.

Original: Food was overall decent. Chocolate cake shake was awesome, it's like they liquefied a chocolate cake in the best possible way. Chicago dog was great, rodeo burger was good. Wife said the spicy chicken sandwich was good but not really spicy. If you've got a large family I wouldn't really recommend the jumbo fries unless you're a fan of soggy fries. I don't know if they just got soggy in the box during our short (less than 10 min) trip home or if their fries in general are soggy. The onion rings were the complete opposite and nice and crispy but we only ordered two larges and not a jumbo so don't know if they also go soggy in the jumbo box. Honestly might go back when it's just the wife, kids and I and dine in to see how the fries are fresh out of the oil.

The worst part of the entire experience actually has nothing to do with the food but rather a unsavory experience with an employee in the restroom. My son and I went into the restroom when we first entered and there was an employee in the stall presumably getting dressed. He was talking on the phone about how he let someone (Sammy if I recall correctly) ride his motorcycle and he dropped it, breaking off a peg and scuffing it up. Problem is the very unfortunate language he was using in a public restroom to tell this story. My son is 8 so he's heard most of those words and knows they aren't nice words and not to use them but to have an employee to be having a very public conversation that was so profanity filled it would make a pirate blush was not a good look for a place that just opened. Never bothered to catch his name since we got out of there as quickly as we could. I hope the young gentleman maybe gets a bit of perspective about how their conversation may be behind a closed stall door but other people, especially young kids, can hear everything he's saying. As a side note I saw a nice white bike in the parking lot as we left so I can understand him being upset just wish he would have had the...

I took 2 friends who had never been to Portillos. I had been to the Sand Lake location with mixed results. One friend ordered chili cheese dog, other friend ordered big beef, and I ordered Charbroiled cheeseburger. First off the big beef took a LONG time to get ready. I and the other friend were both finished with our food before the big beef was ready. The bread used for the big beef was great, BUT he said it had a after taste. Chili cheese dog had so much ketchup on it , it wasn't enjoyable. Charbroiled cheese burger was identical, had so much ketchup on it, if the pattie was charbroiled, you couldn't tell because of the ketchup. There were 3 cashier/ order takers working the cash registers. When it was my time to order, the cashier/ ordertaker, left her register, so I had to wait for another cashier.. I was sorely disappointed, and i'm.not sure my friends will return. I'll wait a while before I return , and when I do return , I'll ask them to hold the ketchup for sure. I hope the get these problems solved as I really want this location to succeed.

I always like to give a place a second chance , if one experience was bad . So this afternoon I tried Portillos. I was underwhelmed to say the least. I ordered a cheeseburger , this time without ketchup. It was a little after 4 in the afternoon , . Took 15 minutes after I ordered for my number to be called. Food was made correctly , but it was so obvious the patty was precooked, it was room temperature at best , at least the cheese was cold, because when you put a room temperature patty on a cold slice of cheese , well you get the idea. In the time it took to get the food , it could have been cooked fresh .The patty was smashed down so much that it was sticking out all around the bun, it barely fit in the box, make it difficult to handle too. I had high hopes for this location , my first experience with Portillos was at Sand Lake , and the burger there was awesome. I was hoping for a similar experience at this location , but it's been disappointing both times. The old saying fool me once shame on you , fool me twice shame on me. I did email corporate about my first experience , as I was asked to , and no one ever responded to that review. I'll stick with Culver's for my burger fix from now on, it's always hot and the cheese is put on the...

I was at a free preview private event prior to their opening. They will officially be open on January 9th 2024. We arrived almost an hour early for our reservation time and we were allowed to go right in. They gave us a couple of sample menus and we wandered in and spoke to a couple of employees on our way. Once at the register, Emma took care of us and was extremely helpful. We have some issues with some things that we can't have and she was able to assist with that easily. My companion got a broiled chicken sandwich with just tomato on it. They said it didn't have a ton of flavor but to be fair, it was broiled chicken. They did enjoy it and they had fries which definitely made things better. I was able to find out I could go off menu and get an Italian beef sandwich, which is my favorite from them. I ordered an Italian beef with hot peppers and extra dipped. I think this is the first time in Florida that my Italian beef came truly dripping with gravy and in a plastic bag to prevent it from leaking. It wouldn't have been a big deal since we were dining in but if I had been hitting the drive-through it might have been a concern. I also had an order of onions with my meal which were well cooked and very crispy. I like to get some of the gravy from the sandwich on my onion rings as well.

We spoke to several of the employees while in the store and everyone was very friendly and personable. At this point this store is already looking like it's going to be another great addition here in Florida.

The decor in this one is obviously different than other ones to a point. There are a lot of posters and signs around focusing on music, cars and food products like Coca-Cola. They also have a Portillo's Christmas tree up which looks really cool.

Last but not least we get to have a slice of their chocolate cake but we are taking hours home to eat later. I know it will be good as I have never been disappointed by their...