Someone ordered a 100-patty burger at In-N-Out, and the chain changed its rules
In-N-Out once stacked patties and cheese to any height a customer would pay for. In 2004 somebody asked for a 100×100: one hundred patties with one hundred slices of cheese. Word of the monster spread, management put a stop to it, and after 2005 unlimited stacking was no longer allowed.
The chain began in 1948 when Harry and Esther Snyder opened a small stand in Baldwin Park, a Los Angeles suburb. It was California's first drive-through hamburger stand, where drivers ordered through a two-way speaker at a time when carhops normally took orders at the car window. A second outlet opened in Covina in 1951, and the Snyders watched both closely to keep standards high. When Harry died in 1976 there were still only 18.
His 24-year-old son Rich took over and oversaw two decades of rapid growth to 93 restaurants, opening the first outside the Los Angeles area, in San Diego County, in 1990 and one in Las Vegas in 1992. His brother Guy continued the expansion, reaching a 100th location in Gilroy in November 1994. After Esther died in 2006, Mark Taylor became the first president from outside the family, and in 2010 the founders' only grandchild, Lynsi Snyder, took the role.
The company refuses to franchise or sell shares, arguing that growth that is too fast would threaten quality and consistency, and it regularly ranks near the top of customer satisfaction surveys. The official menu stays tiny: hamburger, cheeseburger and the Double-Double, with fries, drinks and three milkshake flavours. A sauce called spread, a take on Thousand Island dressing, tops the burgers.
Beyond that sits a so-called secret menu, posted openly on the company website, with options such as the 3×3 and 4×4. In January 2015 the 300th restaurant opened in Anaheim, when annual sales were 558 million dollars.
Source: In-N-Out Burger
