In-N-Out is ditching California because burger politics are not bipartisan | Opinion
Here is the not-so-secret sauce behind the politics of California’s most famous hamburgers. The owners of In-N-Out Burger lean to the right. The state is ever leftward. And at some point, the owners will build a headquarters in another state and leave behind their California operations as mere satellites, selling the ever-addicting circular sandwiches.
The latest in the trend may be the toughest yet to swallow. In-N-Out Burger, exclusive to California for decades with its palm trees, enduring menu, and oozing Double Double cheeseburgers, has its foot out the door. Its owner is moving to a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, and to a new headquarters.
“There’s a lot of great things about California, but raising a family is not easy here,” Lynsi Snyder, the chain’s chief executive officer and heiress to its original family owners, told Fortune Magazine. “Doing business is not easy here.”
The official headquarters apparently will remain in Southern California for now. But we all know how this is going to end. Old-time Californians have seen this before.
The Golden Arches led to Chicago
The first McDonald’s stand was built in 1940 in San Bernardino, the heart of Southern California’s Inland Empire. The first In-N-Out opened for business eight years later in 1948, just down the road in Baldwin Park. Another eight years later, in 1956, a county away in Anaheim, an eatery known as Carl’s Jr. started operations.
The businesses all flourished into signature staples of the California fast food cuisine. Eventually, the eateries became managed from somewhere else.
When the McDonald brothers sold the business to Ray Kroc in 1961, he managed the upstart chain from Illinois. Carl’s Jr. in 2018 moved from its long-time Anaheim headquarters as part of an ownership transition to Franklin, Tennessee. And now, In-N-Out’s owner is moving to Franklin as well.
Carl Karcher, founder of Carl’s Jr, arguably lasted more than a half century in California because, in his era, Orange County was a bastion of conservatism. As an example of his brand of politics, in 1978 he championed an initiative that would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools. Fortunately, it lost.
Ray Kroc championed a controversial Californian, Richard Nixon, for re-election in 1972, donating more than half a million dollars to the embattled incumbent.
Behind the Double Double, a singular party affiliation
By comparison, the Snyder family (Lynsi is the grand-daughter of the founder) has been politically tame. It bristled at some vaccine and testing requirements during the COVID era. It steadily gave to California Republicans. It angered some leading California Democrats. But it didn’t seem to stop line after line of cars from forming at their eateries (about 200 in the state) for yet another burger. That’s because most Californians separate their burger habits from their politics. Otherwise, many of us would simply starve.
As a state native, it’s sad to admit that In-N-Out is rapidly losing its California identity. It has more than 40 outlets in, gulp, Texas.
No wonder Texas is growing so quickly, nearly 5% in just three years. In-N-Out is doing its part to make the Lone Star State so inviting that its growing population may help keep a Republican majority in Congress.
So eager for more Republicans in Washington, President Trump is urging Texas to redraw its district boundaries earlier than scheduled. And when the next official census update is completed in 2030, California could lose as many as five Congressional seats while Texas gains perhaps three.
For In-N-Out, the road to this new Tennessee headquarters is through Texas. “We’re able to reach Tennessee from our Texas warehouse,” Snyder told Fortune. “Texas can reach some other states.”
California has one major holdout from this burger exodus trend: the San Diego-based Jack in the Box. The chain with the clown as a mascot has always followed its own lead. Founded in 1951, the creator of the Jumbo Jack, Robert O. Peterson, was a Republican who also gave to Democrats like Edward Kennedy. And perhaps Jack, the chain’s clownish mascot, has long been oblivious to the California fray. Now the company is publicly traded while In-N-Out remains in private hands, beholden to the whims of its one owner.
The California monopoly on the Double Double ended long ago, in 1992, when an In-N-Out sprouted in Las Vegas. America originally expanded to the West. In-N-Out is expanding in reverse and has been heading east for a generation.
A future In-N-Out national headquarters will inevitably be in Tennessee, with two palm trees carefully contorted to cross one another mid-stem. What a sacrilegious sight for a Californian to behold, but we will have ourselves partly to blame. For our fast food innovators, there has never been such a thing as a bipartisan burger.
This story was originally published July 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM.