Member-only story
From Coast to Coast: The Analytics Behind In-N-Out’s Move to the East
In-N-Out has been a West Coast staple and now is going to try its hand at moving East. We looked at why they chose this path and the opportunity in front of them.
The much loved In-N-Out burger recently announced their plans to expand the brand east. Today, the majority of stores are in California and others are scattered throughout Texas and the West coast. Moving east is a big step outside of the company’s comfort zone.
We looked at the data to understand:
- How the company thinks about markets and location selection
- How they’ve grown geographically
- The target customer and location profile
- Why Tennessee was an attractive market to choose as a hub for east coast expansion
In-N-Out’s Location Footprint Today
In-N-Out operates ~358 stores primarily located in the West coast.
The company’s roots are in California and location growth has been primarily concentrated there as expansion slowly caught on in new states, starting with Nevada.
Recent growth outside of California has been driven by adding locations in Texas starting about a decade back while also incrementally adding across Arizona and Nevada, and most recently focusing on Colorado.
All locations are company owned — no franchises — and In-N-Out owns the distribution process by building hubs that serve locations no further than 500 miles (more on that later).
Customers are surprisingly loyal to the brand, a key part of their West coast success, and figuring out how (or if) that translates to the East coast will undoubtedly be on their mind over the coming years as they ramp up operations.
