In-N-Out’s CEO Says the East Coast Will Never Get a Location in Her Lifetime

In-N-Out’s fiercely guarded freshness rules have kept it a mostly Western chain for decades, and CEO Lynsi Snyder says that’s not changing, an East Coast expansion would mean compromises she refuses to make.

Lynsi Snyder runs the burger chain her grandparents started in 1948, and she says East Coast fans are out of luck for good. Her reason is simple: growing that far would mean cutting corners on freshness, and she won’t do it.

“I don’t see us being on the East Coast in my lifetime,” Snyder said during the President’s Speaker Series at Pepperdine University. “We won’t compromise on quality just to expand.”

In-N-Out currently serves 10 states: California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Tennessee. Six new restaurants are on the way, in Commerce, Stockton and Irvine, California; San Tan Valley, Arizona; St George, Utah; and Twin Falls, Idaho.

The chain runs more than 430 locations and keeps strict rules to protect its food, including never freezing it. At the same Pepperdine appearance, Snyder said the company won’t add online ordering or pickup either, to preserve freshness and keep up its customer service.

Snyder’s grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder, co-founded In-N-Out in 1948. After Harry died, the company passed to his sons Rich and Guy, and Guy was Lynsi’s father.

The California burger has been a fixture at Hollywood’s biggest night since Vanity Fair’s 1994 Oscar party, where staff had access to an In-N-Out truck and started bringing burgers inside for guests. Kylie Minogue, Jamie Lee Curtis and Julia Roberts have all been photographed with the burgers, and a shot Steven Spielberg shared of his In-N-Out order later went viral.

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