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How a Regional Burger Chain Turned Simple into Success.!

Number Two and Loving It.

In-N-Out Burger

Fueling Business Growth

®

There’s a small restaurant on South Sepulveda Boulevard almost directly across the Pacific Coast Highway from The Los Angeles International Airport runway 24R. And there is always a line of people waiting to get inside. Welcome to an American cultural phenomenon known simply as In-N-Out Burger. It’s not a typical fast food hamburger joint.

In-N-Out Burger isn’t the kind of place that would offer anything as exotic as a goat cheese pizza or a California bacon club sandwich. With more than 230 stores in only a handful of states, it has quietly become the number-two hamburger restaurant in America based upon sales per store. At nearly $2 million per unit, InN-Out Burger runs second only to McDonalds. And since 1948, it has continued to thrive through the Power of Simple. In an industry that usually features complicated menus that cause customers to waste time by standing and staring while trying to figure out what to order, In-N-Out is straightforward, with just five basic items. The company has never tried to be all things to all people. Late founder Harry Snyder summed up In-N-Out Burger’s simple mission by saying, “Keep it real simple, do one thing and do it the best you can.”

For more than a half century, since 1948,

In-N-Out has amazingly stayed the course: sell fresh, great-tasting hamburgers, French fries, and milk shakes. It has avoided the temptation to offer breakfast, kids’ meals, salads, pizza, chicken, fish, or exotic sandwich variations. By sticking to its core business, it delivers a cost structure much better than that of McDonalds or any other chain. The company doesn’t waste valuable floor space, inventory, and maintenance

costs supporting marginal products. It has built a competitive advantage by leaving those lowvolume items to its competitors.

In...