In-N-Out Burgers
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.
Burgers
2×4
a 2×4 “Protein Style“
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. In the past, we’ve seen burgers as large as a 100×100, but In-N-Out changed their policy and now a 4×4 is as large as you can get. We managed to get ourselves a 20×20 before that rule went into effect, though.
2xMeat
a 2xMeat with Grilled Onions
(Also known as a “Double Meat”) Two beef patties, no cheese. You can order any n-by-Meat, where n is an integer less than or equal to 4. Triple the meat, triple the pleasure. Need your colon impacted, but don’t have years for it to happen? In-N-Out has the burger for you.
Animal Style
one cheeseburger, “Animal Style”
A mustard-cooked beef patty with additional pickles, cheese, spread and grilled onions diced up and mixed together on the grill before getting dumped on your burger. This is probably the most famous secret menu item, and for good reason: it’s pure awesome on a bun. You can get any burger done Animal Style.
Cut-In-Half
a cheeseburger cut in half”
No big trick here. Ask for any burger to be cut in half, and it will be. As the parent of two girls under five, this makes ordering their meal a lot easier.
Flying Dutchman
a “flying dutchman”
Two beef patties, two slices of cheese. That’s it. No lettuce. No onions. No bun. No nuthin’. Word on the street is that this item was created for people to feed to their dogs at one of the original In-N-Out’s with walk-up service. That sounds plausible to me. Coolest sounding item on the menu. Try tricking a friend into ordering one Animal Style.
Grilled Cheese
grilled cheese
A cheeseburger without the “burger.” My niece always orders the grilled cheese because she doesn’t eat beef and “veggie burgers are boring.” You still have lettuce, onions and tomatoes — as well as a nice helping of the spread. Can also be ordered Animal Style.
Mustard Grilled
They paint your burger with mustard before grilling just like with Animal Style. They just don’t dump the rest of the stuff on top. Pretty tasty if you like mustard.
Protein Style
a 2×4, “protein style”
Any burger you want wrapped in lettuce instead of that carbohydrate-laden bun. Great if you’re doing Adkins. Any diet where you you can eat all the bacon you want but you can’t have a slice of bread sounds suspicious to me, though.
Veggie Burger
Just like the Grilled Cheese, except with no cheese. Also known as a “Wish Burger” — presumably a reference to a song from 1957 by the Chips.
Extra Toast
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. You can also get the bun lightly toasted or untoasted. Not a good idea though. They toast the buns so that they have some rigidity and don’t get soggy by the condiments.
Fries
Animal Style Fries
Animal Style fries
All the same great stuff that’s on an Animal Style Burger, dumped on an order of fries instead.
Cheese Fries
cheese fries
Fries with cheese on top. I assume this is why they call it “cheese fries.”
Fries Light
fries, light
Fries not cooked as long as regular. For that great “I’m eating a raw potato” taste. Not my favorite, but hey, different strokes for different folks.
Fries Well-Done
fries, well-done
You know those delicious little brown crispy fries that you find in the bottom of the bag sometimes? Wouldn’t it be great if you could get an entire order of them? Your welcome.
Drinks
Neapolitan Shake
a Neapolitan shake
All three shake flavors in one delicious cup. Because shakes are so thick, the flavors stay separated. Surprisingly good..
Choco-Vanilla Swirl
“Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony…”
Root-Beer Float
root-beer float
Even old hands at the secret menu are often surprised when you order this item and actually receive it. Great summer treat.
Tea-Aid
Half tea, half lemonade. Yes, we know this is an “Arnold Palmer.” Stop telling us. I suspect In-N-Out is also aware this is an Arnold Palmer. I also suspect you would need to pay Mr. Palmer money to call it that, so In-N-Out chooses not to.
Lemon-Up
Half lemonade, half 7-up or Sprite. Not all suicides are created equal, and this one tastes pretty good.
Extras
Spread
the spread
The In-N-Out version of a “secret sauce.” It’s a bit like Thousand Islands dressing, but there are other things in there, too. You can get a big extra packet of it just by asking.
Grilled Onions
a 2xMeat with grilled onions
You can get them “whole” (one big slice) or chopped.
Peppers
peppers
You can ask for a packet, or get them diced on the bottom of your burger by asking for “chopped chilis.” Several sites refer to them as jalapeños. They look like banana peppers to me.
Extra tomatoes, extra lettuce, extra onion
Do I really need to explain this? I mean really?
No Salt
You can order both your burger and fries with no salt added. This makes them taste worse, but they are marginally better for you. If you are really worried about your health, you’re in the wrong restaurant.
Failures
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: This is another name for a veggie burger, but not all In-N-Out employees know it, though. On our test day, the cashier was flummoxed by it. (Actually, I just wanted to use the word “flummoxed.”)
“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.
Photos by Patti Marcotte
Tags: animal style, burgers, fast food, in-n-out, protein style, secret menu
This article is stupid. In-N-Out only keeps its menu this way because that is how it started in 1948. The so called “secret menu” is merely a reflection of In-n-Out’s amazing customer service and willingness to cater to popular dishes with its customers. If you want something done to your burger, you don’t need the special INO jargon, you just need to be able to communicate it in plain language. The fact that INO has applied its own nomenclature merely serves to make it quicker and more efficient for both the restaurant and the customer.
They indeed acknowledge these secret items. It shows up on the receipt and here it is, on their site:
http://www.in-n-out.com/secretmenu.asp
Nick: you are officially a dooshbag. It would not be written on the receipt if the terms didn’t have meaning. These nostalgic counter culture descriptions of what In & Out can do is a direct result of their dedication to provide 1 line of product in the finest fashion possible. The secret menu only adds to the dedication of their patrons. I guess you just learning about this has you all butt hurt. You probably ate at In & Out for years and never knew about it and now just seek to insult a perfectly legitimate article. Maybe nobody thought you were cool enough to tell so you had to learn about through this article. You probably live in Oregon now and are just bitter we you can’t a delicious Animal style any more. Sounds like your more a Mc Donalds man.
Peace out RonaldNickDonald
Heeeey. Xint. Nick kinda has a point, no? These things you order, and have names. They are just like, say. A substitution.
Imagine people love the animal style burger, right? They order it a lot, only. IT doesn’t have that name, so they have to describe it each time! What Nick is saying is that these items are merely faces for popular custom burgers! If say, you asked the for a sandwich that had hald a veggie patty and half beef, they would make it. If enough people got it, they would come up with a name for it, so that people could easily order it time after time!
Don;t be so mean Xint. Also, it’s *Douchebag*
[...] cheese. if you are a veteran in ‘n out junkie, you are probably familiar with their “not-so-secret” menu. animal style has some very specific characteristics that start with a basic single [...]
[...] Posted by 12231981 OMG, what is that?! .. In-N-Out’s Secret Menu :: Badmouth – scroll towards the bottom Animal Style Fries at In-N-Out Burger | Serious [...]
I love the quantity of cheese applied on each sandwich, and the cheese is amazing, it just adds that super juicy flavour the meat! yum!!
[...] leave a link of an entire secret IN-N-OUT Burger menu I found online for those of you interested: IN-N-OUT’S Secret Menu. Try asking the staff… see what they [...]
First, you missed a couple:
- cheese fries : just cheese, not animal craziness
- whole grill : they take the whole normal round and throw it on the grill. Delicious! Can be ordered “instead” or “as well” when combined with Animal Style’s Diced.
@Nick & @XIntpoint
You’re both correct. As I tell my out-of-town friends when they go to in-n-out for the first time:
Yes, they have a secret menu. Basically, they’ll make it any way you tell them and then tell you a quick way to order it next time.
My usual: Double-Double animal style with whole grill instead and a cheese fry.
No locations here in the midwest but that sounds like a job for that Man vs Food guy
[...] more top secret links check out the In-N-Out secret menu) 0 [...]
I go to In-N-Out now and again due to lack of other choice when I’m out. I find two fatal flaws with them:
#1, the owners are religious zealots. I do not approve of tossing your religion on people no matter how subtly you sneak it in. Despite the seemingly innocuous subtelty, the family are described by those who know them as NOT casually faithful. Just know that some of your money is gonna be donated to conservative political causes.
#2, the burgers are okay but not astounding. To here many enthusiasts discuss them, it would be impossible to find a better burger using items found on this particular planet. Bull. I’ve had better fast food burgers, and I’ve rarely had a restaurant burger that didn’t exceed INO by a wide margin.
The key to the brainwashing, as I see it, is the Secret Menu. Next time you’re in an INO, listen to the younger people in the booths. Not only do they all order off the secret menu, they sit and gossip about what they’ve ordered, what their family and friends order and on and on. No one does that at Burger King. UnhearD of at Carl’s. But now so commonplace at INO, that it’s as much of a cliche’ as the number of bro’s hanging in the parking lot after sundown.
I maintain that the Secret Menu gives those who use it, the keys to an exclusive club… Which is in no way exclusive. But it gives them a feeling of being on the inside where they’re special.
And just by strange coincidence, they’d have ordered An Animal with or without a Secret Menu, cause that’s the way they like all their burgers.
Yes, I said An Animal. NOT Animal Style. Why? Figure it out for yourself. Google it. Go on. Oooops. Turns out you can’t. In-N-Out corporate won’t let THAT little story on the web.