In-N-Out Burger (20 page)

Drag racing was Guy's primary vocation, and during the late 1980s, he stepped up his already considerable involvement in the
sport. He had amassed about half a dozen racers including a green Dodge Charger, a Blue Dodge Dart, and a blue 1941 Willys—but it was his 1986 IROC Chevy Camaro that he raced seriously. When he wasn't racing on the official circuit, Guy, who raced sportsman's class, frequently rented out drag strips in California and Arizona for his own personal use. He'd call up his crew and they would haul his trailer to the Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield or the Firebird Raceway in Phoenix, where he ran his own races.

In 1984, the same year that Rich launched In-N-Out University, Guy convinced his mother and brother to sponsor a professional NHRA team. It was a particular desire of his to see the In-N-Out logo displayed on a winning dragster. The family started small, initially paying a few thousand dollars to partially sponsor the Over the Hill Gang's Funny Car. The Over the Hill Gang was a group of five friends from the San Gabriel Valley who got involved with drag racing in the 1970s. “We could afford to partner up and build the car,” explained Joe McCaron of the Gang team, “but we didn't have enough money to race it.” (Financing a successful NHRA team could cost more than a million dollars.)

In-N-Out's sponsorship increased incrementally over the years from partial sponsorship to full sponsorship, underwriting about three races a year for the team. However, by 1987, In-N-Out's management had become concerned about the money they were shelling out for the team, particularly because it hadn't won a major race. As luck would have it, that same year the team qualified and landed on TV, In-N-Out was just about to pull its funding. In 1988, the Over the Hill Gang won the Winternationals in Pomona. The Snyders and all of In-N-Out's associates were thrilled. The winning Funny Car was pulled through Covina's Christmas Parade and displayed at In-N-Out's Christmas celebration. At the party, the children of associates were allowed to play with the car, pretending to race, sitting behind the wheel.

In 1989, Guy hired Earl Wade, the longtime, highly regarded tuner for Don Nicholson, to build his engines. Wade had been something of a legend on the drag racing circuit from its earliest days, and the
pair had known each other for about fifteen years. Guy had hoped to take his racing to a professional level and wanted Wade to help him. The two men set up a meeting at Earl Wade Racing, the tuner's shop in Monrovia. “Here was a man with a lot of money that can do anything he wants,” was how Wade described Guy Snyder. “Money was never an object. He sure didn't lack in that department.”

In fact, the Snyders kept a tight rein on Guy's spending. Drag racing might have been Guy's hobby, but he didn't hold the purse strings. “Mama and Rich, they oversaw everything that Guy did,” recalled Wade, who said that the Snyders' main concern was for Guy's safety. Rich saw this as an opportunity to encourage his brother. He also viewed the venture as something of an investment in advertising for In-N-Out. The family came up with a private plan, and the Snyders agreed to fund Guy's racing. Anytime Guy needed money for the venture, he had to go through Rich. It was Esther who signed the checks. The annual budget discussions were often the source of blowouts between the brothers.

Rich's support was indicative of the brothers' complicated relationship. As one of Guy's friends put it, “They loved each other, they fought a lot, and they hurt, but they both had big hearts and cared about the underdog. I think Rich really wanted Guy to be happy, and Guy loved racing, and Rich wanted to help him.”

One of the people whom Guy liked to bring along on the road to his races was his friend Tom Wright. Wright, the nephew of Guy's wife, Lynda, reportedly worked for the FBI in the late 1970s and later in security for large Southern California–based aerospace companies. In 1987, Guy brought him to work at In-N-Out as an asset protection investigator. The asset protection department was concerned with protecting In-N-Out against theft and robberies at the chain. According to Tom's wife, Dale, the two had become quite close. Dale worked as Lynda's personal assistant, picking up Lynsi from school and doing errands. Frequently, Guy insisted that Tom drop everything and accompany him to his races. It was a situation that irritated Rich and In-N-Out top brass because it meant that Wright would be absent for stretches of time, neglecting his responsibilities.
Once, while Guy was on the road to Arizona (where he planned to test some of his racers), Phil West, In-N-Out's number two executive, called at Rich's behest to complain that Tom was needed to deal with some unfinished security-related matters. According to an individual familiar with the episode, “Guy barked back, ‘tough shit.' It really pissed off Rich.” Guy remained unconcerned; he took a myopic view of the situation and seemed to shrug off any problems he might cause for the executives in Baldwin Park. In his mind, racing came first, and whatever In-N-Out–related work Tom could fit in around that was just fine with him.

 

Back in Baldwin Park, it had become obvious that Rich was the Snyder brother truly running In-N-Out Burger. Rich tried to give Guy small tasks, but more often than not, Guy let his brother down, and Rich did not trust him with larger duties. When the chain received press attention, it was Rich who was quoted and photographed; Guy remained deep in the background. While Rich carried the considerable burden of running In-N-Out, his older brother was off following his own sense of priorities.

Guy came to resent his brother and the position that left him dependent on Rich for access to funds and under his authority at In-N-Out. The dynamic of their relationship left Rich both angry and sad. Underneath the acrimony, Rich did want Guy to succeed and be happy. He felt particularly helpless when it came to Guy's struggles with drugs. At times, Rich was brought to tears over the situation.

Still, the Snyder brothers came together on numerous family and business occasions. They attended the annual company fishing trip for In-N-Out executive managers at Madison River in Ennis, Montana. Although it was an opportunity for the men to have a few days to be boys, according to one account, during the weeklong trip the pair regarded each other cordially but warily, sticking pretty much to their own entourages. As one friend described the scene, “We all stayed in the same place, but it was like two teams. Richie had his guys close to him, and Guy would take those guys close to him.”

Helping to maintain a buffer between the two brothers was a man named Rick Plate. Plate had known and worked for the Snyders for years. Something of a jack-of-all-trades, he served as a right hand to Rich and Guy as well as acting as their go-between. Given a personal services account, Plate was dispatched to purchase items the brothers needed—including houses. Often he was tasked with handling details surrounding Guy's racing or Rich's hot air balloon hobby. Usually he was asked to be at two places at once, babysitting Guy and handling the Snyders' needs, often just keeping them out of each other's way.

 

Rich wanted to take his business to the next level. When it came to In-N-Out Burger, Guy was rather conservative-minded; like Harry and Esther, he wanted to keep things much as they always had been. He was concerned that In-N-Out might lose its intimate feeling as it got bigger. Once, when Guy had heard that Rich was considering the possibility of introducing a chicken sandwich, he became incensed. “He went ballistic,” recalled a friend. “He was not going to go for that at all.”

The two fought often, their rows sometimes erupting into shouting matches that reverberated throughout the Baldwin Park headquarters from the executive suite on the second floor. “They fought over just about anything,” recalled the friend. “It didn't have to be something big, other than the fact that they pretty much didn't agree on anything.”

Their head-butting reached numerous climaxes—perhaps a standoff was inevitable. Guy continued to struggle with drugs and he could be volatile. It was something Guy's friends on the racing circuit could hardly ignore. There would be periods when Guy was at the track and long stretches when he would simply disappear. Increasingly, Guy and his private troubles were becoming a company liability. He was said to deploy some of his assistants to help him get prescription painkillers from a series of doctors. To a large degree, Rich felt like his hand was forced. While he viewed his older brother as radioactive, privately, the whole situation tore him up.

In one bitter incident, their rocky relationship blew up over a T-shirt.

For years, the company's signature T-shirts had been extremely popular. In fact, by the summer of 1989, the chain was selling twelve thousand T-shirts per month, spurring Rich to launch a mail order catalog of In-N-Out merchandise that later grew into a retail shop. Called the Company Store and initially located at the headquarters complex in Baldwin Park, its inventory grew to include such logo items as mugs, key chains, magnets, and beach towels. In-N-Out's T-shirts had come to be considered a souvenir of “real” California. They could be found all over the country and even on the streets of foreign cities. The shirts were designed with airbrushed images intended to evoke memories of a simpler period, when the chain first began, and before fast food took over every street corner. Most of the T-shirts featured cars from the Snyder brothers' own collection of classics and other telltale symbols that signified both In-N-Out and Southern California: palm trees, hamburgers, the beach, and the famous yellow In-N-Out boomerang arrow.

Then Guy came up with his own design for a shirt. His featured a sexy girl straddling a hamburger, and he had a couple hundred of them manufactured. “I think he knew when he made them that they weren't going to sell them at the store level,” recalled a friend. In all likelihood, it was his way of taunting the straightlaced Rich. If that was the intention, it worked; Rich was infuriated. An unpleasant conversation followed—the fallout was swift. The T-shirts remained packed in their cardboard boxes.

It wasn't long before Rich had reached the end of his tether; he wanted to run the company without any interference.

 

The formal titles given to the brothers reflected not just Harry Snyder's last wishes, but the roles that they had been assigned while growing up: Rich was the reserved and responsible natural-born entrepreneur; Guy was the liberal, partying, wild-child older brother. They were the unequal heirs of a family business, and their positions
reflected that. As the younger brother who had worked at In-N-Out Burger continuously since he was sixteen years old, Rich held the title of president. He ran the show and he was Guy's boss. In a move that would have long-ranging repercussions before the decade was out, the family moved to legally formalize what was already a fait accompli.

On January 31, 1989, the Snyders established an irrevocable family trust: the Esther L. Snyder Trust. The trust was set up to ensure that a majority ownership of the company remained in the hands of direct lineal heirs of Harry and Esther Snyder. At the time, Rich was still single and Guy, who had been married for about eight years, had a seven-year-old daughter. A separate trust, the Lynsi L. Snyder Trust, was set up for her.

Esther, who held a controlling interest in the company, transferred to the trust a majority of the shares of capital stock of In-N-Out for the benefit of her sons. Esther declared her two main purposes in establishing the legal instrument: first, “to make provision for my two sons and other lineal descendants, including my granddaughter Lynsi,” and second, “to enable the stock ownership of my closely held corporation to be transferred from one generation to the next such that the business of the corporation could continue to grow and prosper.”

According to court documents later filed, the Esther L. Snyder Trust was made up of 44,147 shares constituting 65.85 percent of the issued and outstanding shares of capital stock, a controlling interest in the company. The Lynsi Snyder Trust held 4,370 shares of In-N-Out stock, 6.52 percent of the total issued and outstanding shares of capital stock of the company.
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The instrument was typical for a closely held family company that intended that shares would be gifted or willed to the next generation.

However, the Snyder trusts also made several specific points perfectly clear. It was the Snyders' expressed intention to keep the company closely held within the Snyder family, following a direct line of
blood descendants. Underscoring this intention was a provision specifically addressed to exclude Guy's stepchildren. “For purposes of this instrument, Traci Lynette Taylor and Terri Louise Perkins shall not be considered issue of Esther or Guy,” proclaimed the trust in no uncertain terms.

A second, perhaps more significant provision of the trusts concerned the distribution of their assets. While Esther created her trust for the benefit of both her sons, it was not set up for them to inherit equally. The assets of the Esther L. Snyder Trust were divided into two disproportionate parts. Rich was to receive 89.8224 percent while Guy was to receive 10.1776 percent to be distributed in 1996, seven years after the trust was set up, or in the event that Esther died prior to 1996. As the trust itself controlled the majority of company stock, Rich would maintain majority ownership of In-N-Out and his brother Guy would not. Although Guy didn't grouse about the situation publicly, one of his friends put it this way: “He was the oldest son. It had to rub him the wrong way.”

At the time, the trust was structured to reflect the reality of the business and the family, the wishes of Esther Snyder, and her expectations for the future. That reality, however, was about to change—and nobody saw it coming.

Rich Snyder liked to think that success could be achieved through honest dealings. Even during troubled times, he believed in fair play. For him, a man's word was his bond. It was more than just an aphorism. Rich lived that philosophy, and he expected the people he surrounded himself with, including business partners, to act similarly. As In-N-Out Burger was marching toward opening one hundred stores, its reputation growing with each new drive-through, Rich found himself in a situation that tested those beliefs.

If anything, the Snyder family had been unfailingly loyal. Many of In-N-Out's vendor and supplier relationships stretched back decades, to the time of Harry's first two-way speaker box. Begun with a handshake and held together through goodwill, they represented the importance of personal relationships to the Snyders' business philosophy. One of In-N-Out's longtime vendors was PepsiCo. Over the years, the family had been approached by the Coca-Cola Company, but they politely refused to make the switch—in large part out of loyalty to PepsiCo and their relationship with that company.

Then, in 1990, PepsiCo purchased a six-year-old, Michigan-based double drive-through hamburger chain called Hot ‘n Now. PepsiCo was in an acquisitive mood, having already purchased Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and California Pizza Kitchen, folding them into its growing restaurant subsidiary. The majority of Hot ‘n Now
outlets were drive-through only—the buildings had slanted roofs and a yellow lightning bolt logo. The chain featured a simple menu of hamburgers, french fries, and soft drinks. Rich was concerned about the chain's similarity to In-N-Out Burger and possible encroachment on his territory, and he shared his concerns with PepsiCo. The discussions reportedly went high up the management ladder. Rich was assured that the company would not expand Hot ‘n Now to the West Coast. However, a year later, as he was scouting locations in Fresno and Las Vegas, Rich found himself competing for prime spots with none other than PepsiCo's Hot ‘n Now.

Rich felt betrayed. In-N-Out Burger had ties to PepsiCo going back to his parents' first days in the business. The way Rich saw it, In-N-Out Burger had a longtime bond with PepsiCo; by going back on their word, the company had broken that bond. Rich proceeded cautiously. He did a kind of quiet beta testing, replacing Pepsi-Cola with Coca-Cola in ten stores to see how the customers would react. The response was positive, and in 1992 Rich made the switch a permanent one, substituting Coke for Pepsi chain-wide.
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As Rich dissolved In-N-Out's partnership with PepsiCo, for the first time, the chain stepped outside of California. In 1992, he opened store number eighty in Las Vegas on Sahara Avenue just west of the Interstate 15. To mark the burger chain's move, the first of its kind in the company's entire history, Rich had an In-N-Out semitruck parked on the state line between California and Nevada near Whiskey Pete's Hotel and Casino. Once there, a thousand-foot rope was tied to the semi. When Rich gave the signal, a group of managers tugged
the rope and pulled the truck across the state line into Nevada. Rich, who always liked to make a big splash, also hired an Elvis Presley impersonator for the occasion. “Elvis” flew into the parking lot, carried aloft by a hang glider bearing the In-N-Out logo. Store number eighty was the flagship of the eight shops eventually established in Sin City. In-N-Out's second Las Vegas drive-through opened less than a year after the first; located on Dean Martin Boulevard, store number eighty-six had what was reportedly the world's largest neon fast-food restaurant sign. Las Vegas was more than 250 miles from Baldwin Park, and before long, the chain established a Vegas-based distribution center. A satellite of the Baldwin Park Commissary, it allowed In-N-Out to maintain its quality standards by delivering fresh ingredients to its stores daily. Although the chain maintained its typical silence, In-N-Out fans, industry watchers, and other hopefuls saw the chain's entry into Las Vegas as a sign that In-N-Out Burger finally intended to expand its geography.

That hope became something of a mantra among In-N-Out's far-flung and extremely loyal fan base. By the early 1990s, the host and staffers at
Late Night with David Letterman
were known to frequent In-N-Out whenever they were in California. In fact, the group usually made an In-N-Out run part of their annual trek to the Emmy Awards, stopping at the burger joint sometimes still dressed in their tuxedos and gowns on the way to the airport. As one staffer described the annual celebration, “For those of us who don't always go to the awards show, the Monday morning water cooler conversation usually goes something like this: ‘How were the Emmy Awards?' ‘Great! We stopped at In-N-Out Burger on the way back.'”

 

The new decade was off to a splendid start. For Rich, it appeared that his business success was now matched by success in his personal life. Two months before his fortieth birthday, the timid bachelor married for the first time on May 2, 1992. A friend had introduced Rich to his new bride, a twenty-six-year-old sales associate at a Newport Beach equipment leasing company. Sloe-eyed and willowy with chestnut
hair, Christina Bradley had a young daughter named Siobhan. The new couple shared a strong Christian faith and a commitment to helping disadvantaged and abused children. “He was just larger than life,” was how his new wife later described him. “He had a magnetism that just drew you to him.”

The couple was married in a small green church in Maui. Their fun-filled, 1950s-themed reception was held at the Grand Wailea resort. Although it was small, no expense was spared. Rich paid to fly eighty-two of the couple's friends and family to Hawaii (Guy and his wife, Lynda, were conspicuously absent from the wedding party). He also had his classic 1957 white Cadillac convertible shipped across the Pacific for the occasion. Rich's friend and spiritual adviser, Pastor Chuck Smith Jr. of the Cavalry Chapel (son of the church's founder), presided over the ceremony.

In June, just weeks after the Snyders' Hawaiian nuptials, the newlyweds received an engraved invitation from President George H. W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, to join them at a state dinner at the White House in honor of Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Although Rich had attended Bush's inaugural festivities in 1989, he could barely contain his joy. In the final months of the Bush administration, Rich was finally able to check off the two-year goal that he had first set for himself twelve years earlier in 1980—he had received a White House invitation.

Arriving at the White House, Rich and Christina Snyder found themselves in the company of such notables as Kenneth T. Derr, the chairman and CEO of Chevron Corp.; Louis V. Gerstner, then the chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco, and his wife, Robin; Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan; and a Stanford University professor of political science named Condoleezza Rice. After dining on a menu of caviar, roast loin of veal, and caramel mousse in the elegant State Dining Room, the Snyders (along with the president's other guests) moved to the East Room to listen to soprano Carol Vaness.

It was the best party that Rich Snyder had ever attended. As he excitedly told Karen De Witt, a
New York Times
reporter who covered the evening, “I love history, I love our country, and it was all there. The classiest thing I've ever been to. And it wasn't stuffy, either.” This time
it was Rich Snyder who felt as if he had won the golden ticket to enter Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. In-N-Out's president spent the entire evening slack-jawed, pinching himself, overcome by the opportunity to chat up Defense Secretary Richard Cheney, General Colin Powell, and Vice President Dan Quayle, who a year earlier made a well-publicized stop at the Kearny Mesa In-N-Out. The absolute pinnacle of the evening came at about 11:00 p.m. As Yeltsin and his wife, Naina, said their good-byes, President Bush motioned to the Snyders to join him and Mrs. Bush on the dance floor, where the two couples two-stepped to “Shall We Dance.” “There we were, dancing with the President and Mrs. Bush, the only ones on the dance floor,” Rich marveled.

At the end of the evening, a giddy Rich pocketed his nametag, the evening's menu, and even the table placard to keep as souvenirs—much to the amazement of his wife, who was already slightly embarrassed by the number of photographs he had taken during the dignitary processional on the White House lawn. Back home in California, Rich recorded his entire recollection of the evening and had his secretary type up the transcript. “So that in years to come,” he explained, “I won't forget a single detail.”

Following Rich and Christina's wedding, the newlyweds moved into his $3.5 million waterfront home on Bayshores, one of the most exclusive enclaves on Newport Beach's Lido Isle, frequently referred to as California's Rivera. A narrow strip of land tethered to Newport Beach by a short bridge, Lido Isle was transformed into a residential playground during the 1920s by a millionaire developer by the name of W. K. Parkinson, who had made his fortune in oil.

Rich, who had been living in Newport Beach when he met Christina, had begun the process of remodeling his house in anticipation of starting a family. The pair planned to name their firstborn son Harry. Christina suggested that they first get a dog as a kind of test run; Rich, however, wasn't a dog lover, and he wasn't immediately sold on his wife's idea.

Devoted to his mother, Esther, Rich also purchased a second home for her so that she could live close by. In an area of obvious wealth, Rich delighted his neighbors during their frequent block parties when
he insisted on bringing an In-N-Out trailer and supplying all of the hamburgers. “He liked being happy,” said his friend and next door neighbor Bob Longpre, who owned a Lexus dealership in nearby Westminster. “With Rich, what you saw is what you got.” Described as a kind of wealthy everyman, Rich could be found in the local grocery store or working on his pride and joy—a twenty-one-foot custom Duffy Electric Boat Company boat christened
Watts-A-Luck
that was docked in front of his home. Duffy also manufactured electric boats for Walt Disney;
Watts-A-Luck
, outfitted with gold-plated parts, was reportedly one of the fanciest of its kind ever built.

Not long after his wedding, Rich began strategizing for both his and In-N-Out's future. With his personal life settled in Newport Beach, Rich decided to move In-N-Out's corporate headquarters closer to his new home from its longtime seat in Baldwin Park to the city of Irvine. It was a bold move on his part; for one thing, it signaled a huge break in continuity. Moreover, Baldwin Park had unmistakably influenced the company and its culture. In-N-Out Burger had grown up in Baldwin Park, and Baldwin Park was considered by many to be the heart of the company. Irvine—in Orange County—was less than an hour's drive and about forty-five miles away from Baldwin Park. In reality, however, the distance between the two cities was much greater.

The Baldwin Park of the first In-N-Out had disappeared. The San Gabriel Valley had long since been bulldozed, divided, and finally subdivided into a tedious mosaic of mini-malls, vacant lots, and tract homes. The Arcadian image that had lured millions to the area remained largely on those postcards and citrus crate labels that once “advertised” the Valley's scenic wonderland of oranges and sunshine. A working-class suburb whose rough edges had become increasingly part of the city's center, it was facing many of the problems of Southern California's postwar boom communities: increasing crime rates, gangs, shifting demographics, and an eroding manufacturing economic base.

The last vestiges of Baldwin Park's bucolic charm—such as the cast-iron smudge pots used to protect the orange groves from frost in the winter—belonged to history now. The dairy farms and chick
en ranches were long gone. Even the famous Vias turkey ranch had moved to Apple Valley seventy-five miles away, where it was converted into an ostrich ranch.

Affluent and manicured, Irvine was one of the nation's largest planned communities, and it contrasted greatly with the blue-collar scruff of the city that Baldwin Park had become in the years since the Snyders had first arrived. During the 1960s, the Irvine Company, a developer of planned suburban cities, designed the entire city (incorporated in 1971) around the newly built campus of the University of California. Long before the Walt Disney Company developed the city of Celebration in Florida, every detail of residential and industrial Irvine was planned, right down to the construction of its bike lanes and man-made lakes. A post-post-boom city, Irvine's two dozen townships, spread over fifty-five square miles, were each separated by six-lane streets. A quilt of commercial districts bordered the central villages, and the villages were placed sequentially along two parallel main streets that met at the university campus.

In-N-Out Burger planned to take up residence on the top two floors of the ten-story University Tower on Campus Drive on the edge of the university's grounds, leasing the remaining eight floors to other businesses. A modern glass box of a building, it had few of the charms of the Spanish-style headquarters that Rich had built some ten years earlier. (So as not to put off vendors and associates, Rich designed the ninth-floor reception area to resemble an In-N-Out walk-up window.) As one insider noted, the chain's new executive offices looked like the set of the television series
L.A. Law
, which was popular at the time. Rich loved the building, and it signaled the beginning of a new chapter in In-N-Out's history.

Irvine's mayor, Sally Anne Sheridan (who was also a real estate agent and former member of the city council), was thrilled that In-N-Out was setting up its new corporate headquarters in her city. “They called me to talk to me about moving the company down here and asked if the city would welcome them,” she remembered. “We reassured them that we would do everything to help. They were very good corporate friends. I was really impressed with the company.”