Portillo's The Villages — Restaurant in Wildwood

Had a nice outing with the family at the soft opening in Middleton. Terrific staff, very friendly, polite and helpful. I'm sure they had extra staff in for the opening but they all seemed to work well together and provided fast and friendly service! The food was good. Limited options for the soft opening. One kiddo had the hot dog, which had good flavor, delicious fries (w/ cheese sauce). Definitely added on the cheese sauce for dipping. Fries were crispy one the outside yet fluffy on the inside. Another kiddo had a cheeseburger w/fries. Adults had a cheeseburger w/fries and the other had the Italian Beef sandwich w/fries. For the soft opening we could not or were not offered to get it wet or dunked. Not sure if that will be a thing at this location. We will go back and update this post. And you definitely have to try some desserts. The chocolate cake was excellent. The interior is clean, modern, but on point for Portillo's theme amd the Villages area. Smaller area inside but they do have some additional tables outside by the splashpad. They have touchscreen order kiosks or walk up registers. They even have Portillo's merch and swag! We will 100% return for more options, once everyone gets their fair share of it. Its been crazy busy around dinnertime since the grand opening. It will be a great place to grab a dessert or shake when the town center events start to come alive.

Update: we went again and tried the breed chicken sandwich (which was amazing) and the chopped salad (which was not the best, maybe a 2.5). Chicken pieces in the chopped salad were a bit dry, no gorgonzola was no where to be found 🤔, tomatoes were past their prime, but the dressing was delicious. It was a little weird addition with the diced pasta mixed in. Skip the salad, go for the chicken sandwich! 🐔 Lastly, we shared the Onion Rings 💍, because we got them free with the TS/TK engagement promotion. Onion Rings are crunchy and delicious! If you are not part of the perks program, definitely sign up. There are so many free items and benefits! Worth it if you plan to...

Overall it was a mediocre experience and not because the location is new. The sandwich was OK but overpriced for $10. The beef was dry so make sure to not pass up the "gravy" which is really just broth. The small onion ring order is very small for over $4. The chocolate cake was good.

The restaurant has one screen over to the food pickup area showing order numbers that you can't see across the room. They also yell the numbers adding to the ambiance. They could easily add screens on the other side of the room so the patrons with bad eyesight don't crowd the entry.

The point-of-sale and loyalty systems are so terrible that I should have ordered at the counter and foregone the loyalty account. You are encouraged to sign up for a loyalty account only to find out the free-fry promotion gets added to your account ten minutes later. The promotion is so confusing to apply that I could barely figure it out. My friend got his right after he placed his order. When signing up, I had to fumble with a strong password with special characters and click several times to indicate I wasn't a bot. I don't expect polished technology in a small chain but you leave a bad impression when you steer people to signup for a promotion or use kiosks that are so poorly designed that they barely function. You wonder if the people in charge have ever used...

My first visit only earned 3 stars. I ordered the Italian sausage sandwich. I did not add peppers. It was a grilled sausage on a bun. No condiments. I added mustard. The sandwich was VERY dry. I normally love Italian sausage, but this had little flavor and no juice. My next visit, I ordered the Italian Beef with hot peppers and gravy on the side. The beef is juicy and has a light flavor. The peppers - WOW!!! They make the sandwich. And I could not get enough of the gravy! So on visit #3, I ordered the Italian Beef with spicy peppers DIPPED - easily the most awesome sandwiches I have ever had. It is very messy. I will never order anything else! I will probably never know how the hot dogs are. My husband likes the dogs as well as the beef - not dipped, but he loves the...