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Portillo's plans to open in Normal

Oak Brook-based Portillo's Hot Dogs LLC is expected to announce today that it will open a new restaurant in downstate Normal in 2017.

To make that announcement, the restaurant chain is running full-page ads in the Illinois State University's Vidette and the Bloomington-Normal Pantagraph newspapers, said Portillo's spokesman Nick Scarpino.

The opening date and the restaurant's design are still being planned, he said.

On April 1, 2015, the Vidette ran an April Fool's joke with a story that said Portillo's was coming to the ISU campus. This time, Portillo's will arrive in Normal for real, but not on the ISU campus, Scarpino said.

"Many people didn't read to the end of the article to see that it was a joke (last year), so our phones were ringing off the hook that day. We put in our ISU announcement a little nod to that April Fool's joke with 'This is not a joke.'"

The Normal location will be the company's 48th restaurant.

It already has 42 restaurants in Illinois, Indiana, California, Arizona. More will open soon at Canal and Taylor Streets in Chicago, Harwood Heights, Deerfield as well as Brookfield, Wisconsin; and Tampa, Florida.

Since the founder, Dick Portillo, sold the company to Boston-based Berkshire Partners in 2014, new CEO Keith Kinsey plans to open restaurants in all 50 states.

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Joe Kahn of Lindenhurst, left greeted Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik and Portillo's founder Dick Portillo during the grand opening of Portillos restaurant at Gurnee Mills last November. The company now plans to open a new restaurant next year in Normal, Illinois. DAILY HERALD FILE PHOTO
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