When Nick Scarpino joined Portillo’s as its first marketer, there were only 38 locations. Now, the Chicago-area-based restaurant chain is approaching 80 locations, expanding into Arizona, California, Florida and Texas.

But how do you explain Chicago-style food (that isn’t deep-dish pizza) to a new state?

“There’s a few challenges, and it’s probably something that we spend the most time thinking about on the marketing side,” Nick Scarpino, Portillo’s senior VP of marketing & off-premise dining, said on the latest edition of Ad Age’s Marketer’s Brief podcast.

One is establishing that a hot dog can be a meal, not just for cookouts or the ballpark, and that a Chicago-style dog includes a pickle spear. Another is how a Chicago Italian beef sandwich is different from, say, a Philly cheesesteak.

“We find that the best thing we can do is to get somebody who does know us to bring a friend who doesn’t know us. And so we rely on a lot of word of mouth and social media to get our brand loyalists to share the brand with a friend of theirs.”

To find those new locations, Portillo’s combs through its data on nationally shipped orders. 

“We’ve been doing this for over 25 years and it actually informs our real estate strategy,” Scarpino said. “So it would come as no surprise to you that 10 years ago, the number one place we were shipping food was the Phoenix metro area. And then we opened several locations in the Phoenix area. About five years ago to last year, the number one place we were shipping food was the Dallas—Fort Worth area. And not surprisingly, now we have locations open there. And we have many more on the horizon.”

Portillo’s has eschewed TV ads in favor of social media. The brand turned heads in 2021 when it used Cameo to have celebrities and actors say “giardiniera” to spread awareness for the restaurant’s spicy chicken sandwich. Last year, it ran a giveaway for National Hot Dog Week which fans could enter for a chance to win a pair of Portillo’s-branded Crocs. The clogs were such a hit that the restaurant made them part of year-round merchandise. Scarpino says he wasn’t sure at first, but agreed he was not the target Gen Z audience.

“But when I told my 12-year-old we were coming out with a Portillo’s Crocs, boy they went nuts.”

Scarpino also said that his team is keeping an eye on Threads, but taking a “wait and see” approach. “We just had a conversation about this [last week]. We're looking at it. We want to see how it goes.”

Also read: How social media managers are navigating Threads