At face value, In-N-Out Burger seems like a modest enterprise—only four food items on the menu, little to no advertising. For more than sixty years, In-NOut has focused on providing customers the basics—

fresh, well-cooked food served quickly in a sparkling clean environment—and has made consistency and quality their hallmarks.

In addition to making the best burgers around, In-NOut’s other primary successful trait is its insistence on playing by its own rules.

A fi erce entrepreneurial streak ran through the Snyders, In-N-Out’s founding family, and from the sock-hop décor to the secret menu to its treatment of employees as long-term partners instead of disposable resources, the chain prefers to focus on its formula for success instead of conventional defi nitions like shareholder return or IPOs.