Over the weekend, I learned that In-N-Out Burger now has a restaurant in one of my favorite spots in our state — West 7th Street in Fort Worth.
Then, when I went to In-N-Out's website to confirm this, I was a little surprised to see how extensively the California burger chain has blanketed Dalllas/Fort Worth. I wrote a blog in May about the opening of the first Texas In-N-Out in Allen. Since that time, In-N-Out has opened eight more stores and another two are under construction.
And then I wondered how soon In-N-Out might begin moving south to, say, Waco? I emailed In-N-Out and they promptly responded to my questions. What I received was bad news/good news.
"In-N-Out Burger has always grown at a slow and controlled pace so, at this time, we are not looking at sites outside the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area," said Carl Van Fleet, In-N-Out vice president for planning and development. "Eventually though, Waco, Austin, San Antonio and Houston are all easily within reach of our Dallas distribution center."
OK, I can live with that. But it gets even better as its unlikely that In-N-Out would skip Waco on its way to bigger cities to the south of us.
"In the future, as we look down I-35 toward Austin and San Antonio, Waco would be an excellent candidate for a restaurant," Van Fleet said. " If we were going to Austin, we’d be sending one of our delivery trucks right through Waco making it a very logical choice."
One of the major components of the In-N-Out burger brand is that it produces all of its own burger patties to ensure freshness and quality. As such, one distribution center in Baldwin Park, Calif., produces the hamburger patties for all 247 In-N-Out burger locations throughout California as well as Nevada, Utah and Arizona.
Now that In-N-Out has a hamburger patty production and distribution center in Texas, it's probably just a matter of time until the burger chain begins looking around Texas. It's good to know they're at least thinking about us.
