In its 2024 annual report, Portillo’s told investors it aimed to grow its restaurant count by 12 to 15 percent a year, on the way to more than 900 restaurants nationwide.
In its 2025 annual report, filed thirteen months later, the phrases “900 restaurants” and “12 to 15 percent” appear zero times.
They were not revised downward. They were removed.
In their place is a sentence about a more gradual approach to new market entry to build the needed awareness, trial and demand for future restaurants.
The company calls what happened a strategic reset. Its chief executive left in September 2025, its chief development officer left, and it booked $4.4 million in costs for the reset itself and $5.1 million for something called dead site costs.
The question is what they found out.