Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Monday, September 8th.

Today on Forbes, Chicago's hot dog king, Dick Portillo, on selling out and moving on.

It's been 11 years since Richard Dick Portillo sold Portillo's,

the restaurant chain offering up Chicago-style hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches

that he founded in 1963.

Sitting in the living room of his 9,000 square foot home in the Chicago suburbs, a short

drive away from the location of the original Portillo's he opened more than 60 years ago,

the 85-year-old former Marine is feeling nostalgic. He says, quote, I'm sorry I sold.

I didn't owe 10 cents to anybody. But ultimately, he knew it was the right decision to make.

He says, quote, there were 24 private equity groups that were interested in buying Portillo's.

The timing was right.

Portillo had spent more than five decades building the company from a single hot dog stand

in a six-by-12-foot trailer without running water, into a regional chain so beloved that the

city of Chicago officially declared April 5th, the day it it was founded as Portillo's Day.

By 2014, the company was bringing in about $300 million in revenues from 38 locations in four

states. The chain had no debt, and Portillo owned every single restaurant himself.

He cashed out that July, pocketing nearly $1 billion from Boston-based

private equity firm Berkshire Partners. Suddenly, he found himself with a lot of cash and not much

to do. He negotiated soon after the sale to buy back the land and buildings of 20 Portillo's

restaurants and commissaries in Illinois and Arizona for more than

$100 million, locking in 20-year leases at some of the chain's highest-grossing locations.

The average portilloes brings in about $7.6 million, more than fast-growing giants such as Chick-fil-A and

...