In-N-Out Is Coming to Colorado

Few fast food joints have as devoted a fan base as In-N-Out. The burger chain that originally launched in Baldwin Park, California in 1948 has always stayed meticulous about its consistency and been methodical about its expansion. Despite demand, the company refused to expand beyond its Southern California roots until 1992 when it finally opened up a Las Vegas location. Since then, the brand has gone on to open restaurants in six states in total—California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas and Oregon—with major growth typically proceeded by the opening of new distribution centers to make sure the company could get its always fresh ingredients to new locations without any issues. So even though In-N-Out hasn’t officially stated where any Colorado locations may open, the state got some extremely good news: The burger brand is slated to open a new distribution center in Colorado Springs.

According to Business Insider, a spokesperson for the development company behind the new facility confirmed what Albus Brooks, President of the Denver City Council, tweeted out yesterday: In-N-Out is planning to build a distribution center in the Victory Ridge redevelopment area in Colorado Springs. The location is reported to have both a burger patty production facility and offices. According to the spokesperson, the project has no current timeline and is still in the early planning stages, so needless to say, the openings of any actual restaurants would appear to be pretty far off. Still, you can’t ride the train until someone lays down the track, so this initial first step has to be considered sweet music to the ears of any In-N-Out fans within a burger delivery radius of Colorado Springs.

Speaking of which, if we had to speculate on where new Colorado In-N-Out locations may land, Texas would probably be a good model to reference. In 2011, the company opened a distribution center in the Dallas area, and though the brand didn’t do much expansion to the north, it did work its way down Interstate 35, opening locations in major metro areas like Austin and as far south as San Antonio, over 250 miles away. Similarly, Colorado Springs is on Interstate 25, which when traveled north hits major cities like Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins—all of which would seem like prime targets for new In-N-Out restaurants. However, if you take I-25 south, you’re less than 400 miles from both Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not to get New Mexico’s hopes up, but just sayin’…