GoKawiilPortillo's Founder Dick Portillo Built $1 Billion Hot Dog Empire After 1963 Start
Dick Portillo opened a hot dog stand in Chicago in 1963 with just $1,100, despite not knowing how to prepare a hot dog, and grew it into the Midwest's largest privately owned restaurant chain with 4,000 employees. In 2014 he sold Portillo's to private equity firm Berkshire Partners for nearly $1 billion, using the proceeds to buy a mansion, a private jet and a Florida waterfront home.