At long last, I can finally say I've eaten at the world famous In 'N Out Burger. It feels a little anticlimactic actually, not at all what I expected. Maybe the build-up to the straightforward meal of burger,fries and diet coke was just too much for such a simple meal to bear up under. I'm not saying it wasn't good. It was good. It was fine. The burger, anyway, was better than okay. It just wasn't great or even really good and if I hadn't gone there on purpose knowing it was something memorable and special I doubt if I would have taken note of this meal at all. It would not have made much of a lasting impression. Believe me I'm not trying to be contrary. I was predisposed to be delighted, but it just didn't happen for me. Personally, I'm always slightly annoyed at those persons who feel they must go against the general popular opinion, but that's not what I'm doing here. I would love to be able to report that it was the best ever, but it just wasn't.
Okay, let's analyze it. The burger was a real burger - thinner than I prefer, but tasting fresh and solid and with a ragged handmade shape to it that just made you feel that it wasn't stamped out of meat in some far off processing plant. The burger was good. I didn't know about the sauce that came on it, I'm not usually a fan of those special sauces, but I ate it like that with the standard lettuce, tomato and raw onion and I liked it. Neither of my children had ever eaten a hamburger in their lives and they each ate their naked burgers on buns with ketchup (one even ate a second). No, the burgers were good. Not thick and juicy and homemade tasting like the Wild Willy's ones, nor as thick and tasty as the UBurger ones, but solid and more than acceptable.
We did not like our french fries at all. I was shocked about this since I had reports of amazing fries at In 'N Out Burger, but these were terrible. None of us liked them. The texture was reminiscent of styrofoam and that in itself was enough to turn us off. Maybe they were having a bad day or maybe they just weren't to our taste, but UBurger beat them out in the french fry department for sure - even Wild Willy's whose fries are mediocre at best beat out the fries we had yesterday... they were just plain bad.
There is one point that I should mention. As we sat around the dinner table later that day discussing the In 'N Out Burger experience - and my dismay at finding it less than what I had anticipated - my husband asked about price. That's when the lightbulb went off in my head. That's the reason In 'N Out Burger is so great - it was incredibly cheap - certainly as cheap as McDonald's, but the food, with the exception of the french fries, was far superior. Wild Willy's is expensive (and takes a long time), UBurger is a little faster and cheaper, but not really cheap, In 'N Out Burger was cheap, very cheap and pretty fast (well, compared to Wild Willy's anyway). In 'N Out is high value - if you have to eat fast food then it is the place to go.
One final note: the store was amazingly clean. We wandered in around 3:00pm for lunch and were lucky enough to arrive at a moment when only two people were in line ahead of us. Ten minutes later, when we were sitting down at our table the line was out the door... amazingly this place is busy all day and they still manage to keep it spotless. The tables around us were wiped off as soon as they were vacated and the floors were swept up continuously. Everything seemed shiny and fresh which made the experience of sitting down and eating our burgers much more enjoyable. I found their operation quite impressive.
So was In 'N Out all I hoped and expected it to be? No it wasn't. But at least I've been now, I have my own opinion (and not all the other ones I've read and heard) and I get it now. That's a great feeling. Check it off.
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