The Stanford Business Reporter

Issue date: 11/12/01 Section: Best of Stanford and Beyond

Despite its loyal following, In-N-Out flies below the radar screen in the fast food wars, avoiding expensive advertising campaigns and in-store promotions. To cultivate its customer base, In-N-Out relies largely on word of mouth and a series of quirks that makes those “in the know” feel like members of an exclusive club.

Take the menu, for example. To the uneducated, it has only four items: hamburger, cheeseburger, “Double-Double” (a double cheeseburger) and french fries. But then there’s a “secret” menu, a series of code words the more savvy customers use at the register to customize their orders at no extra charge. You really should discover the following on your own, but in the spirit of the GSB, we’ll provide a Free-Rider version:


Animal Style – An excellent option. If you order your burger “animal style,” it’s cooked in mustard and served up with pickles, extra sauce, and grilled onions. You won’t find this anywhere on the menu, but all the cash registers have an “animal” button for this very order.

Fries, Well Done – If you prefer your fries on the crispy side, just ask.

Three-by-Three – A variation on the Double-Double, this one has three burger patties and three slices of cheese.

Four-by-Four, Two-by-Four, etc. – You get the picture. You can ask for any combination of burger patties and slices of cheese. Like rattling off coordinates, remember that burgers are on the x-axis and slices of cheese on the y.

Three-by-Meat – A burger with three patties and no cheese.

500-by-500 – The unconfirmed record, once ordered by a fraternity.

Grilled Cheese – A burger without the meat patty.

Veggie Burger – A burger without the patty or cheese.

Protein Style – A burger that has lettuce substituted for the bun.

Neopolitan Shake – A shake that combines strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream.

The product is, of course, excellent, and not what you’d expect from a typical fast-food burger joint. All burgers are cooked to order, sometimes causing long waits at peak times, and In-N-Out restaurants don’t use microwaves or freezers, except for the storage of real ice cream for the shakes. The French fries are made from fresh potatoes, peeled and sliced on the premises – not delivered pre-sliced and frozen from a supplier. In fact, In-N-Out prides itself on having higher standards with suppliers than other fast-food chains. The company has often refused opportunities to open stores in certain locations because of dissatisfaction with the quality of beef available in the area – even though McDonald’s or Burger King already had franchises in the same location.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools