Portillos of Brandon
Project Description
If you haven’t heard of them, they’d relish the opportunity to introduce themselves. They started as a small hot dog stand outside Chicago in 1963 and have grown to serve the most delicious beef, burgers, salads, and chocolate cake in dozens of locations in and around the greater Chicagoland area. Tampa residents spent years peppering them with requests to build a restaurant — they really put them in a pickle. So they’re thrilled they’re finally making their way to Florida. The first Florida location is in Brandon off state road 60.
The structure consists of 17,500 high strength load bearing 8”, 10”, and 12” block. To create the depth in some of the exterior walls they are (3) wythes deep. There are 38,000 utility size brick with three different colors that make up the arches, columns, dentil corbelling, soldier courses, and an “X” pattern made out of batt ends on one end of the building. Next, to literally cap that off there is over 800 pieces of cast stone caps, sills, accents, trim and base units. Finally, there is exterior themed paintings applied to the brick that provide the quintessential Chicago feel. The original design was changed to incorporate a masonry stem wall in lieu of a monolithic slab pour to expedite the overall building schedule so the structure would not have to wait on the underground utilities for all the kitchen equipment. |
