Sounds like a good enough reason to me.

MaxxLarge: Angelenos get so effing religious about their bloody In-N-Out. So I was counting on a near-transcendental experience when I was out there in June, and tried it.

For the uninitiated: It's just a burger. A burger that's far more hype than it is anything else. It's fine, but it's absolutely nothing special. I wouldn't even put it in a top-ten. Aside from feeling like an ultra-hipster when you order off of the SOOPER SEEKRIT MENYOO everyone in the universe still knows about anyway, there's nothing to the experience you can't get around the corner from where you live.

I was going to say this. They built a bunch in Dallas this year, and it was ultra-Meh.

And yes, we'll be near the, uh--some burgers, some beers, a few laughs.

MaxxLarge: Angelenos get so effing religious about their bloody In-N-Out. So I was counting on a near-transcendental experience when I was out there in June, and tried it.

For the uninitiated: It's just a burger. A burger that's far more hype than it is anything else. It's fine, but it's absolutely nothing special. I wouldn't even put it in a top-ten. Aside from feeling like an ultra-hipster when you order off of the SOOPER SEEKRIT MENYOO everyone in the universe still knows about anyway, there's nothing to the experience you can't get around the corner from where you live.

This.

In fact when I lived down that way, there were several smaller family owned joints that served better burgers at a better price. They didn't have scriptures on the cups though, so they had that going against them or for them or whatever.

MaxxLarge: there's nothing to the experience you can't get around the corner from where you live.

I wouldn't go that far, but I will agree that they aren't ZOMG TEH AMAZORING burgers like some try to make them out to be.

/wouldn't mind one in Colorado Springs
//our one Five Guys is in an awkward area to get to compared to where people typically are

MaxxLarge: Angelenos get so effing religious about their bloody In-N-Out. So I was counting on a near-transcendental experience when I was out there in June, and tried it.

For the uninitiated: It's just a burger. A burger that's far more hype than it is anything else. It's fine, but it's absolutely nothing special. I wouldn't even put it in a top-ten. Aside from feeling like an ultra-hipster when you order off of the SOOPER SEEKRIT MENYOO everyone in the universe still knows about anyway, there's nothing to the experience you can't get around the corner from where you live.

While I'll agree that it's overrated, it is still the best fast food burger I've ever had. It's certainly not the best burger I've ever had, not even close, but for fast food, it is pretty darn good. I think what separates it from its competitors (in this case McD's, BK, Wendy's, etc.) is that they don't franchise, they only use fresh ingredients, everything is made to order, and they're incredibly clean - in general they have really high standards. I personally love that they grill the bun and have fresh raw onions. Their fries leave something to be desired, but I love getting them animal style. Also they have excellent shakes for a fast food place.

What I don't get is the love for 5 Guys. I've tried it about 10 times at multiple locations and I've yet to have a remotely decent burger there. Maybe I'm missing some key topping that pushes it over the edge or something. The cajun fries are good though - not great, but I'll tolerate going there if people want to go simply for those fries.

PillsHere: What I don't get is the love for 5 Guys. I've tried it about 10 times at multiple locations and I've yet to have a remotely decent burger there. Maybe I'm missing some key topping that pushes it over the edge or something. The cajun fries are good though - not great, but I'll tolerate going there if people want to go simply for those fries.

My five guys experience has always been that the burgers are above average for fast food but not by a huge margin, and the fries are amazing (But decay very very quickly with time, cold five guys fries are terrifyingly bad).

I've had Five Guys and In-N-Out. Both were really good. You people are just numb after years of crappy fast food burgers.

As far as political promises go this is one of the more realistic ones.

/I'll get around to that after I finish EATING THE MOON!

Fantastic burgers, terrible fries. I just get 2 cheeseburgers and a shake instead.

We already have Smashburger here. In-N-Out doesn't even compare.

Having never been to In-N-Out or Five Guys, how do their burgers compare to Steak 'n' Shake's?

/Best fast food I've ever had.
//Why does the nearest one have to be a hemisphere away?

They got my vote, and I don't even live there

still really mad that they were in california (where i used to be) and they moved to arizona---you would have thought they would have stopped in at least albuquerque before they went to texas--i mean, it is on the road to there---but no, they hopped right over us and went to texas.

almost makes me want to go to fatburger

I've heard a couple of reasons as to why In-n-Out doesn't go far outside of Cali. One was that they have a single trusted source for their ground beef, and you can only truck it so far using refrigeration (as opposed to freezing) before you run into shelf-life issues. Another was that every store had to be operated by a member of the family, and none of them want to live where it is wet (OR, WA) or cold (CO, ID).

I agree with the statement that others have made. As far as restaurant burgers go, there are others that are better. But as far as fast-food chains, they're one of the better ones.

Also, they pay their employees well and they donate to a lot of reputable charities. And as for the scriptures on the bottom of the drink cups, it is very low-key. It is a heck of a lot better than how the fundamentalist owners of Carl's Jr and Hardee's openly donate to Christian hate groups. As an agnostic, I have no problem doing business with In-n-Out. I'll never eat at a Carl's Jr., though.

This man has his finger on the pulse of America

Here's a clue: In-n-Out's "secret" sauce is secret for a reason.

They've been using a batch of self replicating Tuscan-inspired thousand island dressing since the mid 1960s. No shiat, I've seen it myself. It's a large bucket, bigger than your standard mop bucket, and it can replicate itself from a single bit of relish left at the bottom. There's a man hired SOLELY to replicate it. Since it's viscous, even after dumping the bucket into another bucket, enough remains for the replication.

They started calling it 'animal style' because the original CEO, Milford Innout (he was Swedish), remarked that only an animal would eat it knowing where it came from.

But its real origin is unknown, it died with Milford in that plane crash.

Don't believe me? That's how they get rid of all the secret holders.

http://articles.latimes.com/1993-12-24/local/me-5046_1_memorial-servi c e

If you're going to eat like shiat, it might as well be the best tasting shiat you ever had I guess.

Whatever, my local burger place is better than your local burger place.


On the west side of Los Angeles, near LAX, there is an In-N-Out and a Five-Guys literally within 5 minutes of each other on the same street.
In-N-Out is better, and busier.

/Not that I wouldn't go someplace else entirely, and enjoy the burger more.

In N Out is not a franchise, and never was.

Ok, who wants a Big Mac? From McDonalds?


You know, any McDonalds that any town with a population of over 5,000 would be immediately coerced into building by McD's public relations firm.


The Big Macs. Made by overworked people living in your community who thaw the genetically modified patty, slap on some awful looking veggies and sauce, cough all over it, and dump it in a bag with your fries, napkins and complementary "real catsup" imitation ketchup. For six bucks and change.


THAT'S why the love for In-N-Out. It ain't the greatest. But compared to what is out there, it's a hell of a lot better.

The Dog Ate My Homework: We already have Smashburger here. In-N-Out doesn't even compare.

Exactly. Don't even mention In-n-Out or Five Guys in the same sentence. They're not even in the same league.

It's a good burger and very reasonably priced outside of touris traps. Imagine if McDonald's simplified its menu and used nothing but real food. I thought that is a very good value for the price when I visited my friend in the Vegas suburbs.

I have never understood what people see in Five Guys. It tastes just like Wendy's but costs twice as much. I don't hate Five Guys, but it's just not worth the money.

In smallville, u.s.a., politics really does come down to "a vote for an 'In-N-Out Burger' franchise in our town".

I lived in Vernon, NJ for a number of years. The usual course was:

1- local man wants to open up restaurant in town, says "we need MORE restaurants in this town!"
2- town is against it, especially established restaurants saying, "we don't need another restaurant"
3- local man finally gets to open restaurant by either dogged persistence or gets elected to town council
4- Franchise wants to open in town, (BK). Residents against it as "It won't make Vernon special anymore, we'll be like everywhere else!"
5- local man of most recent restaurant, ("we need MORE restaurants") fame, make speech saying, "what Vernon doesn't need is another restaurant"
6- local deli, for which keeping summer staples like "Cole Slaw" in supply during summer months was way beyond their ability, objects to "more competition", (most likely BK won't run out of basics friday afternoon and won't be able to make anymore until Monday).
7- BK franchise owner, just happens to be on town council and manages to get about 20 variances, (parking, lot-size, signage, etc.) to open restaurant anyway.
8- Local Deli closes soon after as it can't compete with real competition in town

When they got a "Dunkin' Donuts", it was also a HUGE controversy. I tried to make a point by visiting my local donut shop. Three times I went in asking for a chocolate covered donut only to be told that the owner hadn't felt like making them. I thought chocolate frosted might be a popular choice for a donut, to which the owner replied to me, "It is, but so what. I made fruit filled. If you don't like it, why don't you go down the hill to that DUNKIN DONUTS and get it there!!" To which I did. Needless to say, after about 6 months, that donut/delishop was also out of business for simply refusing to stock what customers wanted and couldn't handle competition.

Small town business owners really can't compete, which is why you pay extra for that "small town charm" and usually have to rough it by ordering whatever they have available, rather than what's listed on the menu.

Good mother of Christ not another farking burger thread!

EVERYONE makes a good burger, it just all depends on your particular taste which is best and which sucks.

There, thread over. You can all go back to not working now.

Dinjiin: I've heard a couple of reasons as to why In-n-Out doesn't go far outside of Cali. One was that they have a single trusted source for their ground beef, and you can only truck it so far using refrigeration (as opposed to freezing) before you run into shelf-life issues. Another was that every store had to be operated by a member of the family, and none of them want to live where it is wet (OR, WA) or cold (CO, ID).

I agree with the statement that others have made. As far as restaurant burgers go, there are others that are better. But as far as fast-food chains, they're one of the better ones.

Also, they pay their employees well and they donate to a lot of reputable charities. And as for the scriptures on the bottom of the drink cups, it is very low-key. It is a heck of a lot better than how the fundamentalist owners of Carl's Jr and Hardee's openly donate to Christian hate groups. As an agnostic, I have no problem doing business with In-n-Out. I'll never eat at a Carl's Jr., though.

I have a friend who is an In and Out manager, so I can give you the info as to why some places have in and out and others don't.

They don't have a single source of "trusted beef", but they do have to have a local source of beef that meets there testing standards that can be shipped to the different locations without freezing. Similar things apply to their buns/fries etc. Texas (and Utah for that matter) was able to provide these locally. One of the things they are big on is consistent quality throughout the chain, and they won't go to states that can't meet these conditions locally. Getting the local meet/bun production contracts/suppliers in place was one of the reasons it took 1-2 years longer then anticipated for In and Out to move into Texas.

As far as the family member running each location.. that's false. However, they do have a very solid hire from within program.. and you just don't get to manage a store without having some time as a food operation/assistant manager. Competition for management jobs is very high, and they have a great profit sharing program.

Flash_NYC: When they got a "Dunkin' Donuts", it was also a HUGE controversy. I tried to make a point by visiting my local donut shop. Three times I went in asking for a chocolate covered donut only to be told that the owner hadn't felt like making them. I thought chocolate frosted might be a popular choice for a donut, to which the owner replied to me, "It is, but so what. I made fruit filled. If you don't like it, why don't you go down the hill to that DUNKIN DONUTS and get it there!!" To which I did. Needless to say, after about 6 months, that donut/delishop was also out of business for simply refusing to stock what customers wanted and couldn't handle competition.

Small town business owners really can't compete, which is why you pay extra for that "small town charm" and usually have to rough it by ordering whatever they have available, rather than what's listed on the menu.

This. There's always a lot of whining about how small businesses get pushed out when a Wal-Mart or some other chain store opens up shop. And yet people never ask themselves why this happens. The answer of course being: because they want it to. The very same people complaining, are the ones who make it happen. The small shops go out of business because people start taking their money elsewhere. Even the ones who whine about it. It's called Creative Destruction. The old style of business goes away when it's replaced by something that does it better. However you feel about it, or tell people you feel, when you chose the chain store, you're helping the process. The example about Dunkin Donuts was a good one. For all the whining about losing the small town charm, at the end of the day, the small town donut shop just plain sucked compared to Dunkin Donuts. Dunkin Donuts offered better variety and was willing to give the customers what they wanted.

The basic rule of all business has never changed: find out what people want, and then find out how to sell it to them.

That donut shop stopped following that principle, and so they failed. They were not selling what people wanted.

Thorny4Pie: Good mother of Christ not another farking burger thread!

EVERYONE makes a good burger, it just all depends on your particular taste which is best and which sucks.

There, thread over. You can all go back to not working now.

No No NO. Sit down.

We are going to hash this out and reach a consensus.

Flash_NYC: In smallville, u.s.a., politics really does come down to "a vote for an 'In-N-Out Burger' franchise in our town".

I lived in Vernon, NJ for a number of years. The usual course was:

1- local man wants to open up restaurant in town, says "we need MORE restaurants in this town!"
2- town is against it, especially established restaurants saying, "we don't need another restaurant"
3- local man finally gets to open restaurant by either dogged persistence or gets elected to town council
4- Franchise wants to open in town, (BK). Residents against it as "It won't make Vernon special anymore, we'll be like everywhere else!"
5- local man of most recent restaurant, ("we need MORE restaurants") fame, make speech saying, "what Vernon doesn't need is another restaurant"
6- local deli, for which keeping summer staples like "Cole Slaw" in supply during summer months was way beyond their ability, objects to "more competition", (most likely BK won't run out of basics friday afternoon and won't be able to make anymore until Monday).
7- BK franchise owner, just happens to be on town council and manages to get about 20 variances, (parking, lot-size, signage, etc.) to open restaurant anyway.
8- Local Deli closes soon after as it can't compete with real competition in town

When they got a "Dunkin' Donuts", it was also a HUGE controversy. I tried to make a point by visiting my local donut shop. Three times I went in asking for a chocolate covered donut only to be told that the owner hadn't felt like making them. I thought chocolate frosted might be a popular choice for a donut, to which the owner replied to me, "It is, but so what. I made fruit filled. If you don't like it, why don't you go down the hill to that DUNKIN DONUTS and get it there!!" To which I did. Needless to say, after about 6 months, that donut/delishop was also out of business for simply refusing to stock what customers wanted and couldn't handle competition.

Small town business owners really can't compete, whic ...

The big difference between the small town business owners and the big chains is consistency. Pretty much anything you order from a major chain is going to be pretty much equal to something you order from a competing chain or a different location of the same chain, and all of the things they serve are about as good. With the small business, you are taking a gamble. You can be lucky and get an awesome meal for a good price, or you can be over charged for a crap meal. The trick is to take the risks to find the awesome in your neighborhood, and then avoid the crappy local places as well as the mediocre chains.

How's the big Kahuna burger?

/y'know that a quarter pounder in France is called a royale with cheese?

//can't believe this hasn't been posted

Drive thru burger champions of the planet:

1. Arctic Roadrunner
2. Burgerville

I would vote for any man brave enough to bring a Whataburger to St. Louis.

That's the only thing I miss about Texas. Big tasty Whataburgers.

Unless the place has been entirely Kalifornicated, this guy just signed his own political death warrant.

The irony is that IAO has proven that freezing your fries, because they usually are are blanched in the process, makes for much better fries. Blanching creates the crunchy outside, fluffy inside, as opposed to chewy, nasty INO fries. I have to order them well done, animal style just to make them edible.

Oh wow, a native Californian trying to turn other parts of the country into California... shocking...

beta_plus: It's a good burger and very reasonably priced outside of touris traps. Imagine if McDonald's simplified its menu and used nothing but real food. I thought that is a very good value for the price when I visited my friend in the Vegas suburbs.

This is basically why I like the place. Their success is more about specialization than anything else. In terms of food they do three things: burgers, fries, onion rings. Instead of having to spread their money over a large number of food items, it all goes towards a small handful of ingredients, which allows them to buy higher-quality ingredients while maintaining the same profit margins as most other fast food places.

There are better burger places, obviously, and even better fast-food burger places. It's not difficult to make a good burger, it's just difficult to do so while paying cut-rate prices. Still, the burgers there are good, miles better than most of the nation-wide fast-food burger joints. More to the point though, it's different, and if it comes down to a choice between a new In-n'-Out or your town getting its third McD's, I'll take In-n'-Out. Yay variety.

MaxxLarge: Angelenos get so effing religious about their bloody In-N-Out. So I was counting on a near-transcendental experience when I was out there in June, and tried it.

For the uninitiated: It's just a burger. A burger that's far more hype than it is anything else. It's fine, but it's absolutely nothing special. I wouldn't even put it in a top-ten. Aside from feeling like an ultra-hipster when you order off of the SOOPER SEEKRIT MENYOO everyone in the universe still knows about anyway, there's nothing to the experience you can't get around the corner from where you live.

I have to agree with this as well. Went out to LA a few years ago and my everyone was telling me that I HAD to try this place. It was thinking it would be a near orgasmic experience. What a letdown.

/I did enjoy the west coast beers though.

I didn't read the article, but I'd vote against the guy based on that. In and Out Burger makes a very mediocre burger. It's not horrible, but it's not any better than McD's or Burger King or Wendy's.

I'd be pissed if my tax money were paying for it in any way.

Pertifly: MaxxLarge: Angelenos get so effing religious about their bloody In-N-Out. So I was counting on a near-transcendental experience when I was out there in June, and tried it.

For the uninitiated: It's just a burger. A burger that's far more hype than it is anything else. It's fine, but it's absolutely nothing special. I wouldn't even put it in a top-ten. Aside from feeling like an ultra-hipster when you order off of the SOOPER SEEKRIT MENYOO everyone in the universe still knows about anyway, there's nothing to the experience you can't get around the corner from where you live.

I was going to say this. They built a bunch in Dallas this year, and it was ultra-Meh.

It's probably like Chuy's in Austin. The original location is awesome. The franchises that have been branching out: meh.

dericwater: //can't believe this hasn't been posted

Are you new here? This is like the 26,237th burger thread, and that's just this week. I'm sure that old and tired quote has been used in at least a few of those.

JuggleGeek: it's not any better than McD's or Burger King or Wendy's.

Now you're just being silly.

Grilled onions and fresh ingredients is what sets In'n'Out apart for me. I can smell the grilled onions when I drive past. I always seem to get good service there too. Everyone speaks English, and they tend to be polite and friendly.

What is it about In-n-Out that people love so much? I've been to a few of them in California, it was decent food, certainly better than the average fast food burger, but nothing spectacular. Maybe I was expecting too much after all the hype? For just a few bucks more I can get a much better burger in any number of sitdown joints.

evil saltine: JuggleGeek: it's not any better than McD's or Burger King or Wendy's.

Now you're just being sillyaccurate.

Silly Some politicians fight for abortion bans

Alcoholic Freudian slip: I mis-read this as "abortion bars"