by Stacy Perman
Less than two years after he became In-N-Out’s president, Rich’s management skills were put to the test. At twenty-six, he faced the first major challenge to his abilities as a leader and the future of In-N-Out Burger.
At about 7:00 p.m. on August 16, 1978, a fire broke out at the chain’s Baldwin Park headquarters. Sixty firefighters from eleven engine companies rushed to 13502 E. Virginia Avenue to battle the flames as they ripped through In-N-Out’s warehouse, offices, and meat department. The blaze had caused the sky to turn black, filling it with giant plumes of smoke that could be seen as far away as the cities of Duarte, six miles to the north of Baldwin Park, and Hacienda Heights, eleven miles to the south.
When the smoke had cleared, the facility was completely gutted. The roof had collapsed, and only the burnt walls of the hollowed-out concrete warehouse remained. Fortunately, the facility was closed at the time and nobody was inside. The following day, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported that the blaze had caused an estimated $750,000 in damages.
The fire was potentially devastating for In-N-Out Burger, and not just in monetary terms. The warehouse, built before sprinklers were required, was the heart of In-N-Out’s operations. The fire didn’t just pose a threat to Rich’s immediate plans to expand; it jeopardized In-N-Out’s ability to continue to operate, period. But Rich was determined to get In-N-Out back up and running immediately.
Resuming the chain’s operations was a scramble of logistics and perseverance. Rich and Esther bravely and quickly organized a game plan. Carrying the Snyders through this rough period was the amazing show of support by the chain’s associates.
While the associates did their part, even more important, Rich was able to rely on In-N-Out’s close ties with its suppliers. Like his father before him, Rich continued to stick by the company’s promises to pay full price for the highest quality ingredients. When prices plunged or spiked, or there were shortages due to weather or other events, In-N-Out always absorbed the cost. As long as the quality remained exceptional, he did not look for cheaper suppliers. It was part of the Snyders’ business practice to take care of their purveyors as they did their customers and associates. After the fire, when In-N-Out was unable to deliver supplies to the chain, a group of In-N-Out’s longtime suppliers delivered their goods to individual stores until the warehouse was rebuilt. In-N-Out Burger had always taken care of its suppliers, and, following the warehouse fire, this time the suppliers took care of the burger chain.
Esther took charge of the chain’s administrative duties, converting a portion of the first floor of her San Dimas house into In-N-Out’s temporary offices. With eighteen stores, In-N-Out Burger was still a relatively small operation, and Esther brought a handful of “the girls,” as she called them, from accounting to work with her in her home. Rich found a rental facility nearby that he turned into the chain’s provisional warehouse and distribution center. And he worked out of the small warehouse building on the edge of store Number One that still housed Snyder Distributing.
While the Snyders made plans to rebuild their operational and administrative facilities on East Virginia Avenue, they ran the company in this manner for nearly two years. To Rich’s considerable credit, each one of the chain’s eighteen stores remained open and running with hardly a hiccup. In fact, while still operating the company out of temporary facilities, Rich demonstrated that the fire would not hamper his plans to move In-N-Out Burger forward. By 1979 he had added three new stores, including the first in San Bernardino Country.
It had become clear that as In-N-Out moved ahead with its expansion it needed to construct its newer stands to accommodate larger crowds. It had outgrown its signature format: a simple 250-square-foot open kitchen flanked by twin drive-through lanes, with a walk up window (and nearby five hundred-square-foot storage building) on a one-acre plot. While that prototype helped spawn a host of imitators, the Snyders were running up against two crucial issues: the growing cost and dearth of available one-acre plots and the chain’s own unbridled popularity.
Bottlenecked drive-through lanes spilling into passing street traffic had become almost as synonymous with In-N-Out as its boomerang arrow. Increasingly, municipal zoning officials began to think twice about signing off on permits for In-N-Out’s twin-lane format, causing numerous delays for new openings. Intent on expansion, Rich found an alternative solution to increase capacity and keep city officials placated: build a new store prototype with indoor dining and a single drive-through lane. The Ontario store was the first designed with the new prototype. As Rich later told Nation’s Restaurant News, “I think double drive-throughs are great; we love to build them. But most cities [resist issuing permits to high-volume drive-through operators], at least if their name is In-N-Out.” In some ways, the shift marked the end of the Harry Snyder double drive-through era.
Meanwhile, Guy Snyder was pursuing a life mostly outside the family business. Officially, he was In-N-Out’s executive vice president, but it had been obvious that it was Rich who was running the company. He was earning a salary that was reported to be close to seven figures although he was not an active presence in the company. Guy’s attentions were focused elsewhere.
Much of Guy’s time was spent on the drag circuit. Although his motorcycle accident had left him with only about 50 percent mobility in his right arm, in frequent pain, and in need of subsequent back and arm surgeries, Guy continued to find a way to race. The devastating injury made it virtually impossible for Guy to shift his four-speed. Even a task as banal as zipping up his own fire suit at times proved difficult, and he could be seen struggling, his right arm limp at his side, as he closed up his jacket. The injury made it difficult for him to obtain his racing license, and so Guy had an automatic transmission built for his cars and raced sportsman class instead.
Along with his brother, Guy had amassed a significant collection of rare and classic hot rods. It was an expensive hobby that dated back to his teenaged days at the Dale. The collection included a number of jewels such as a 1963 Corvette Split Window Coupe and a 1965 Shelby Cobra 427. Guy was said to have paid about $500,000 for the Cobra that was featured in the 1966 Elvis Presley film Spinout.
Guy converted a one-hundred-by-seventy-five-foot storage space within the East Virginia Avenue complex into a museum-quality hangar for the cars with a black-and-white checkered marble flooring fit for an Italian palazzo. The hangar was far enough east of the original warehouse that it was spared from the 1978 fire. Just outside his hangar, Guy built a miniature drag strip about one-eighth of a mile long along with an NHRA regulation burn-out pad and timing light where he could test the cars’ performance.
In 1979, while staying at one of the family’s vacation homes in the tony surfers’ haven of Hermosa Beach, Guy met a woman named Lynda Lou Perkins (née Wilson). At the time, she was working in a T-shirt shop and the two began dating. Lynda was seven years older than Guy and had two daughters, Traci (thirteen) and Terri (eleven), from a previous marriage. According to intimates, it was Lynda who pursued the eligible bachelor.
Photographic Insert
ARMY GREEN: A perforated eardrum left Harry Snyder, circa 1942, stateside and serving largely behind a desk during World War II. Among his duties, Harry processed B-52s at Hamilton Field in Novato, California. On the side, Harry worked at the Sausalito Shipyards for extra cash. (Rich Snyder Family Collection)
NAVY BLUE: Esther enlisted in the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) in 1943. Established to fill the vacancies created by the thousands of men sent to the battlefront, WAVES were not eligible for combat duty; following boot camp, Esther was stationed at the San Diego Naval Hospital, where she earned the rank of pharmacist’s mate second class. (U.S. Navy Memorial, Washington D.C.)
BOATING IN SEATTLE: Harry and Esther met in 1947 at Fort Lawton, where she was the restaurant’s manager and he sold sandwiches. After the war, Harry came up with the idea for a new kind of restaurant. (Rich Snyder Family Collection)
HAL
CYON DAYS: In the fields and orchards surrounding the Snyders’ San Dimas house, Guy and Rich (circa late 1950s) played army and Guy displayed his early love of cars. (Rich Snyder Family Collection)
NO DELAY: Harry’s two-way speaker box inspired the company’s name—customers drove in to order and then drove out without ever having to leave their cars. The original (1948) sign is now pitched at the company’s Baldwin Park headquarters. (Duke Sherman)
BURGER U: In 1984, Rich Snyder built the chain’s first university on the site of Harry and Esther’s old Baldwin Park house. The university’s purpose was to help create and train a steady pool of management talent to populate the expanding chain. The current university was built in 2004. (Duke Sherman)
ROADSIDE BILLBOARD: The famous In-N-Out yellow arrow and analog clock tower still stands on the north side of the I-10 freeway. In 1954, the path of the I-10’s expansion in Baldwin Park cut through store Number One and the Snyders tore down the original, rebuilding a new Number One a short distance away. Harry designed the new shop as the now famous double drive-through. In 2004, In-N-Out shuttered the original and built the third of its “Number Ones” on the opposite side of the freeway. (Duke Sherman)
THE WEDDING PARTY: Rich and Christina Snyder (center) married on May 2, 1992, in Maui. Almost eighteen months later Rich, Phil West (far left), and Jack Sims (third from left) were killed in a plane crash. (John L. Blom Custom Photography)
IN-N-OUT BURGER FAMILY PICNIC: At the annual company outing in 1997, Guy Snyder and his second wife, Kathy Touché, along with her children, Aaron, Andy, and Emily. (Kathy Touché)
THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY-TREASURER CIRCA LATE 1980S: Despite their great success, Rich and his mother, Esther, loved attending new store openings and visiting with associates. (Rich Snyder Family Collection)
IN-N-OUT BURGER’S SOLE HEIRESS: Lynsi Snyder Martinez has been largely kept out of the spotlight and rarely photographed publicly. As a toddler in the arms of her Uncle Rich (circa 1984), she’s already aware of her inheritance, holding an In-N-Out soda cup. (Rich Snyder Family Collection)
MICHELIN-STARRED FAN: The French Laundry’s renowned chef Thomas Keller (left) was photographed in the Napa Valley In-N-Out store for the April 2006 issue of Food & Wine magazine. A longtime (and vocal) fan of the chain, Keller announced he was opening his own burger restaurant, Burgers and Half-Bottles, an homage of sorts to In-N-Out. (Thomas Heinser)
BREAKOUT DESIGN: The Westwood In-N-Out, store 119, was designed by famed Los Angeles architect Stephen Kanner in the pop modern style in 1997. Kanner’s hopes to leverage his award-winning design to re-brand the chain going forward were dashed when he was told “The burgers should be the star,” not the store. (Kanner Architects)
IN-N-OUT AT THE OSCARS: Since 2001, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has hired one of the chain’s cookout trailers for his annual party at Morton’s following the Academy Awards. Wildly popular, the iconic burgers have become an integral part of the exclusive fete. At the 2006 party, alternative rocker Beck grabs a cheeseburger. (Eric Charbonneau/Wireimages Getty Images)
THE QUEEN: Celebrated actress Helen Mirren in her custom-made Christian Lacroix gown was famously photographed tucking into an In-N-Out burger following her best actress win at Vanity Fair’s 2007 party. (Eric Charbonneau/Wireimages Getty Images)
After courting for a year and a half the pair married in 1981. However, Rich insisted that his brother have a prenuptial agreement signed before the wedding could take place. Just two days before the wedding, Kim Stites ran into Lynda, who appeared irritated by the prospect. “She wasn’t happy about the prenuptial,” Stites recalled. Nevertheless, Lynda apparently signed it, as the event moved forward.
Their wedding on Valentine’s Day was a lavish affair held at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. The Philip Johnson–designed church took its name from the more than ten thousand rectangular panes of silver glass that housed the cathedral. The new Mr. and Mrs. Snyder began their marriage in high style; a helicopter flew the couple to their reception aboard the Queen Mary, the luxury liner that had once ferried Winston Churchill, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, and Fred Astaire across the Atlantic.
By all accounts, Guy transitioned easily from a thirty-year-old bachelor to a husband with a ready-made family, quickly embracing his two new stepdaughters. Said one relative, “He loved those girls like his own.” The couple lived in a $600,000 estate home in Glendora, nestled in the bluffs at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. The couple divided their time between Glendora and their 170-acre ranch in the picturesque mountain wilderness of Shasta County at the northern ridge of the Sacramento Valley. Up at the Flying Dutchman Ranch (named in homage to his father Harry’s ancestry), Guy liked to ride his Caterpillar tractor across the property, play video games, engage in paintball matches, and shoot off pistols. In the summers, he went fishing in Alaska or hunting in Montana. Lynda began raising llamas.
Guy was not completely absent from In-N-Out; he was involved to a degree with the warehouse and meat department. Along with Lynda, he attended many of the company’s events and activities—but there was no question that it was Rich who was in charge at In-N-Out Burger.
On May 5, 1982, Lynda gave birth to the couple’s first child—a daughter, Lynsi Lavella Snyder. She was Guy’s only biological child, and he doted on his new daughter. It appeared that, despite his recurrent troubles, Guy had found a measure of stability in his life.
CHAPTER 11
Rich’s tastes ran contrary to those of his parochial parents. He had no problem spending extravagantly and often turned the most basic of events into glittering, over-the-top affairs. Straightlaced in practically every other area of his life, his prolific spending stemmed from his belief that In-N-Out was not just a fast-food joint—and Rich’s predilection for the showy was his way of broadcasting this belief.
In January 1979, Rich hired a local architect to work with him on designing an entirely new headquarters and warehouse on the original property on East Virginia Avenue. In rebuilding the facility, Rich decided to erect a structure that would incorporate the practicalities needed for the growing company he envisioned and at the same time embody Rich’s lofty ambitions. When it was finished, it resembled one of the mansions of the captains of industry rather than the offices of a modest Depression-era couple who founded a postwar burger joint.
Construction crews broke ground in Baldwin Park in 1979, and by the time In-N-Out Burger’s sprawling nine-acre complex was finished almost two years later, the chain had expanded to twenty-four shops. On December 1, 1981, In-N-Out’s corporate office personnel moved in, signaling a new era for the small burger chain.
It was a time of dynamic changes. Just eleven months earlier, former movie star and governor of California Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the fortieth president of the United States. The Republican administration marked a new era of conservative politics and economics. The national news was focused on the new president’s supply-side economic policy (called “Reaganomics”); the end of détente with the Soviet Union; and the start of a massive military buildup.
On the cultural front, a new nighttime soap opera revolving around a fictional wealthy oil family from Denver called Dynasty made its debut. MTV, the twenty-four-hour music video channel launched on cable. And a shy, twenty-year-old kindergarten teacher named Lady Diana Spencer became an instant global phenomenon when she married Britain’s Prince Charles on July 29, 1981. Their wedding attracted 750 million television viewers in sixty-one countries.
The timing was perfect. The new In-N-Out headquarters’ ribbon-cutting ceremony took place just as the San Gabriel Valley was on the cusp of experiencing tremendous economic growth. Baldwin Park’s chamber of commerce began actively recruiting new businesses and redevelopment projects. A newly built two-bedroom house with two bathrooms cost about $80,000—a tenfold increase from the time when Esther and Harry first arrived.
Located among gritty industrial factories and lumberyards, In-N-Out Burge
r’s new complex ran along both sides of East Virginia Avenue, encircled by a sentry of long-necked palm trees, securely locked behind gates. The headquarters’ showpiece was its two-story villa, modeled after one of the many grand Spanish mission-style revival villas that had once graced the San Gabriel Valley. It featured stucco walls, terra-cotta roofing, arched windows and doorways, hand-carved woodwork, vintage tiled ceilings, and wrought-iron ornamentation. A custom-made stone fountain was flown in from Guadalajara, Mexico. Rising above the villa was a custom-made cupola with a twelve-foot diameter and a five-foot drop. Inside the corporate offices, a large portrait of Harry Snyder was hung.
Instead of asphalt, Rich chose to lay down costly poured concrete. Custom landscaping brightened up the islands of concrete. Manicured lawns were planted, as were beds of flowers, and dense hedges were trimmed to spell out in block letters “IN-N-OUT.” In a nod to the chain’s origins, the original red and white neon sign from the first stand that read “IN-N-OUT HAMBURGERS NO DELAY” was posted on a patch of grass outside of the villa not far from the entrance gate.
Inside, the first floor was made up of several departments and rooms including the automotive department that handled all of the administrative aspects of operating the chain’s growing fleet of eighteen-wheelers, maintained at the chain’s truck depot that flanked the headquarters. In the “Liberty Room,” used for managers’ meetings and social functions, there was an antique oak bar, built by the Brunswick Company (the manufacturer of the famed billiard tables) in 1887. According to a detailed company inventory, the ground-floor accounting department was built with a vault that held the company’s “pertinent records and in-house computer,” where the temperature was maintained at a constant sixty-five to sixty-eight degrees.