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In-N-Out President Lynsi Snyder has said that she and her family are moving from her home state of California to Tennessee.
Snyder, 43, the billionaire heiress to the famed burger chain, cited the challenges of raising a family in the Golden State while it also comes at a time when the company is expanding the business into the Volunteer State.
Snyder grew up in Northern California, before moving to Southern California. She has four children and is married to Sean Ellingston, who has a background in Christian ministry and mentoring.
In-N-Out President Lynsi Snyder has said that she and her family are moving from their home state of California to Tennessee. (Leonard Ortiz/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
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“We’re building an office in Franklin [Tennessee,] so I’m actually moving out there,” Snyder said on an episode of the podcast Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey that aired on Friday, per Fox 11.
“There’s a lot of great things about California, but raising a family is not easy here,” Snyder said. “Doing business is not easy here now.”
Last year, the company closed a location in Oakland that had been operating for 18 years, citing crime issues that impacted customers and employees. It was the only location to have closed in its 77-year history. It currently operates more than 400 locations.
“I mean, there was a lot,” Lynsi Snyder told the PragerU video network in December, SFGate reported. “There was actually — gunshots went through the store, there was a stabbing, there was a lot.”
“For the safety of our associates, we just felt like, this is not OK,” she added.
An In-N-Out sign at one of the company’s more than 400 locations. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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Snyder is the granddaughter of In-N-Out founders Harry and Esther Snyder, who established the business in California in 1948. It was the first drive-thru hamburger stand in California and is known for its fresh, never-frozen food and simple menu.
In-N-Out has a heavy footprint in California, while it also has locations in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Colorado, and Idaho, per its website. Each store is operated by the family, and it has resisted the urge to become a franchise like similar big fast food chains.
The company announced an expansion to Tennessee back in 2023 and plans to open multiple restaurants in the state. The company plans to open its first restaurant in the state next year.
“It will be wonderful having an office out there, growing out there and being able to have the family and other people’s families out there,” Snyder told Stuckey.
Earlier this year, In-N-Out also announced that it would be moving its corporate headquarters from Irvine back to Baldwin Park, where the restaurant was founded in 1948.
Snyder said in the podcast interview that In-N-Out would be closing the Irvine office by 2030, instead of the initial plan of 2029, per Fox 11.
“My uncle opened the office in Irvine … in the ‘90s,” Snyder said in the podcast, per the New York Post. “When my dad came down to run the business, we had moved to northern California. It was family over fighting with his brother and running the company.”
“So when he came down and saw Irvine and all of that, [he] was just like, ‘This is not us. This is not our roots, this is not my dad,’ and he wanted to move everyone back to Baldwin Park. So he kind of did a hybrid. He moved a lot of people back to Baldwin Park but Irvine continued on and continued to grow and my dad died a handful of years later.”
Burgers are served at an In-N-Out restaurant. (Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Safe Kids Worldwide / Getty Images)
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In May, the company announced seven new restaurants were coming across the U.S., with four in California and the others in Washington and New Mexico.
She added that for now she is not heeding calls to expand to Florida.
“Florida has begged us and we’re still saying no. The East Coast states, we’re saying no. We are able to reach Tennessee from our Texas warehouse,” Snyder said, adding that, “Texas can reach some other states.”
