In-N-Out’s Secret Menu

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