In-N-Out Burgers is a West Coast institution. And one of the keys to their success has been keeping it simple. There are only four food items on the In-N-Out menu: Hamburger, Cheeseburger, Double-Double and French Fries. In-N-Out compliments the food with the standard array of Coca-Cola beverages and three shakes: chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. And that’s the menu in its entirety…
…or at least that’s what they want you to think. The truth of the matter is that there is an extensive “secret menu” available for those in the know. In fact, the secret items actually outnumber the items legitimately on the menu.
This isn’t just stuff made up by bored employees. If you order a Flying Dutchman, “Flying Dutchman” prints out on your receipt. It’s in the computer.
There is lots of information out there on the Internet about the secret menu, but no one seems to have gotten it all, and a lot of what is out there is just plain wrong. Nothing is more embarrassing than ordering a secret item that doesn’t exist.
So, through dilligent research, we have managed to produce what we believe is the definitive guide to the In-N-Out secret menu.
Click on the name of the tester to see photos of our daring taste-test staff — Mgmt.
2×4 Burger
Tester: Josef
Description: A “2×4″ is a burger with two beef patties and four slices of cheese. You can also order a “3×3,” a “4×2″ or any other meat/cheese combo your little heart desires. Rumors of a “100×100″ are widespread and thus far unproven. (Yeah, yeah. It’s been proven now. We know. —The Mgmt.) We’d love to see a photo, though.
Comment: The 2×4 was humongous, but great.
3-by-Meat Burger
Tester: John
Description: Three beef patties, no cheese. You can pretty much order “any number”-by-Meat.
Comment: Triple the meat, triple the pleasure. Do you want your colon blocked but don’t want to wait for years and years for it to happen? Well, In-N-Out has the burger for you. I miss my cheese.
“Animal Style” Burger
Tester: Patti
Description: Mustard-cooked beef patty, additional pickles, extra secret sauce with grilled onions.
Comment: I love this burger. Best if ordered without tomato. It has lots of oniony, cheesy, goodness with “special sauce” to boot. (No one ever says that the sauce is just Thousand Island dressing.)
“Double-Meat” Burger
Tester: Maureen
Description: A Double-Double without the cheese.
Comment: The Double-Meat burger was huge — very filling. I would have liked some sauce, however. It seemed a little dry.
The Flying Dutchman
Tester: Steve
Description: 2 beef patties, 2 slices of cheese. That’s it. No lettuce. No onions. No bun. No nuthin’.
Comment: Two all-beef patties with cheese. What more can you say?
Grilled Cheese
Tester: Rachel
Description: Cheeseburger without the “burger.”
Comment: I always order the grilled cheese because I don’t eat beef and veggie burgers are boring. It isn’t as boring as a regular grilled cheese. The sauce makes it better.
“Protein Style” Burger
Tester: Aaron
Description: Any burger you want wrapped in lettuce instead of that carbohydrate-laden bun.
Comment: It felt like it was missing something…oh yeah, the bun! The lettuce wrapping actually made it less messy, but I was still hungry afterward. Next time, I’ll try “Animal Style.”
Veggie Burger
Tester: Chandra
Description: Hamburger with no burger and double tomatos.
Comment: Expected a “veggie burger.” Got a bun with whole grilled onions*, sauce, lettuce and double tomato. Not bad, but rather overly simple for eating out. Won’t order it again. I’ll stick with my usual Grilled Cheese with grilled onions.
“Extra Toast”
Tester: Shireen
Description: Leaves your bread on the grill a tad longer resulting in “crispy buns,” which is not as dirty as it sounds. Can be ordered with any burger.
Comment: About the same. Maybe slightly crispier than normal — but not much.
Fries: “Animal Style”
Tester: Ian
Description: French fries with secret sauce, onions and cheese on top.
Comment: Excellent! I will definitely order these again. Mmmmm…cheesey, oniony goodness!
Fries: “Light”
Tester: Desiree
Description: French fries cooked a little less than normal.
Comment: My light fries were very good.
Fries: “Well-Done”
Tester: Patti
Description: French fries cooked a little longer than normal.
Comment: I couldn’t really tell the difference from these vs. the normal fries. Not very impressive. I don’t think I’d bother asking for well-done again.
Choco-Vanilla Swirl Shake
Tester: Rachel
Description: Chocolate and vanilla shakes in the same cup. Swirled, not blended.
Comment: It tastes like a regular chocolate shake to me.
Lemon-Up
Tester: Tevin
Description: 1/2 Lemonade, 1/2 7-Up. Since they started letting you get your own drinks, you can make this yourself.
Comment: I thought it was OK. And it tasted like a tangerine.
Neopolitan Shake
Tester: Maureen
Description: Strawberry, vanilla and chocolcate all swirled together — not blended.
Comment: I loved the Neopolitan Shake. I expected all the flavors mixed together, but they were separate.
Tea-Ade
Tester: Miles
Description: 1/2 Iced Tea, 1/2 Lemonade. Since they started letting you get your own drinks, you can make this yourself.
Comment: It wasn’t good.
Failures
Tester: Various
Description: Not everything that we found on the Internet actually existed. So here are a few imaginary items that we ordered so you don’t have to.
Wish Burger – I assume this is a reference to a song from 1957 by The Chips, where you have two slices of bread, and you wish you had some meat. It’s supposed to be a veggie burger. Our lovely cashier had no ide what we were talking about. But she did recognize the words “Veggie Burger.” So we ordered that instead.
“On the Sal”: “On the Sal” was supposed to give us all the vegetables that normally go on the burger, with secret sauce on top, and nothing else — basically a tiny side salad. Once again, the lovely cashier had no idea what I was talking about.
But ordering the non-existant “On the Sal” taught us something important:
Although she had no idea what I was talking about, the cashier was perfectly willing to give me an “On the Sal” if I could describe it to her. Evidently, the registers at In-N-Out are a little more sophisticated than the “picture of the fries” model at Mickey-D’s.
The employees at In-N-Out will do anything to a burger if you ask them.
This probably doesn’t include stripping naked and dancing around the burger while praying to your dark gods, but it might — we didn’t ask.
Click here to get a downloadable PDF version of this menu that you can print out and take with you.
links
In-n-Out: the 20×20
Wikipedia: In-N-Out Burgers
In-n-Out: 100×100 What Up Willy!
Tags: burgers, fast food, in-n-out, secret menu
I’ve always thought a verion of the animal fries with a beef patty shopped up and place on top of the fries would be awesome. Also is true chopped jalepenos are available as a burger topping?
The beef patty on the animal fries is just too disruptive to the flow of biz, it has been tried before though. I suggest ordering Animal Fries w/ a Flying Dutchman and making it yourself, it is pretty good.
We have “Chilies” (Actually hot banana peppers, not Jalapeños) Just ask for “Chopped Chilies” for on the burger or “Side of Chilies” for a side of 2 whole peppers.
Thanks guys!
Hey is their something called the grizzly style burger when they take your order and put a handful of fries on it? My friend said that he used to get them at a place in northern California
No sorry no “Grizzly Style” putting fries on the burger interrupt the flow of the line too much.
Does In-n-Out really have tomato soup?
Omg!!!!! I love cheeese and i really want that Flying dutchman burger mayyyyne(: yummy!<33333
i lived next to the arrow hwy store in 1965 and my grandmother owned a cafe next to it and the owner used to give us suicide drinks that had a little of everything in them.
i live in florida now and miss them BADLY.
i love your web site, thank you.
There’s also “with peppers” which comes with jalapeno peppers, or some other spicy pepper.
You can ask for a side of chili peppers and you will get individually wrapped marinated, spicy yellow chili’s. They are pretty dang hot. I like to bite off the end and pour the chili juice into my ketchup!
Absolutely love it all..Every burger you could possibly thing of is just right there..If you need to avoid the fatty patty you’ve got a protein burger for that! excellent!
The half Ice Tean and Lemonade is called an Arnold Palmer – can be ordered at any Bar and when prepared correctly it is very Good. Named after the Golfer.
The half Ice Tea and Lemonade is called an Arnold Palmer – can be ordered at any Bar and when prepared correctly it is very Good. Named after the Golfer.
I don’t see any mention of “spread on the side”. They just give you the “secret sauce” or on the side in a cup.
“The employees at In-N-Out will do anything to a burger if you ask them.”
Now I hate to ask where the Secret Sauce comes from. EEeeew!
Then don’t ask for the secret sauce sicko.
theres also a double-single. its a double double with one slice of cheese. when i was pregnant i had my boyfriend ask them for a double double with one slice of cheese which he thought i was crazy only to find out they actually had a name for it lol
I’ve been working to get “picnic style” at least known by the folks at my favorite location:
Double Double, pickles, lettuce, mustard, ketchup, tomatoes. Just like at a picnic.
There were a couple of people at the LAX store who would always hook me up without needing extra instructions.
Dub add pickles K/M instead
Is there any limitations to what In-n-Out would do? Like a 50×50 Animal Style?
Yes we no longer make anything larger than a 4×4. It got to complicated for packaging, speed of service & quality of product reasons we had to limit ourselves.
Get a 4X4 and 23 Flying Dutchmans. Some assembly required.
you need to get laid.
Your mom needs to visit more often
Hey darling, great website! I genuinely like this post.. I was curious about this for a long time now. This cleared a lot up for me! Do you have a rss feed that I can add?
what kind of onions does in n out use?
Great tasting onions. It’s fresh and delicious.
Fresh pealed & hand sliced daily white onions.
Do they have fries with Cheese?
Yes just ask for Cheese fries.