Seventy-five years ago, California got its first taste of a drive-thru hamburger. Harry and Esther Snyder opened a modest 10-by-10-foot hamburger stand in Baldwin Park just east of Los Angeles. The sign read: “In-N-Out Hamburgers: No Delay.” Had the original location not stood in the way of the incoming Interstate 10 that stretches across the continental United States, it would still be standing. In 2014, as an homage to the original, the fast food chain constructed an exact replica of the hamburger stand near its original location. Since that first hamburger stand opened on October 22, 1948, at 4:15 pm, In-N-Out Burger has built more than 400 locations, and it has expanded as far north as Oregon and as far east as Texas.
Lynsi Snyder is the granddaughter of Harry and Esther and became president of the major fast food company in 2010. Under her guiding hand, In-N-Out Burger has continued to thrive and expand, not as a corporate conglomerate, but as a family business. As with the reconstruction of the original location, the third-generation Snyder has vowed to use the company’s history to guide its future.
