In-N-Out Burger Plans to Relocate Headquarters to Tennessee

In-N-Out Burger announced plans to relocate its company headquarters from Irvine, California to Tennessee by 2029.

The popular fast food chain’s new headquarters in Franklin will oversee the launch of some three dozen In-N-Out Burger storefronts throughout the Volunteer state, according to a report by Straight Arrow News. Franklin is a 25-minute drive from Nashville.

“Part of it is that maybe the younger generation doesn’t feel as tight of an affinity to California as the older generation did,” UCI Professor Ken Murphy said who teaches operations management at UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business, co-authored the “Is California Losing Its Mojo?” study, which was funded by the CEO Leadership Alliance of Orange County.

In-N-Out Burger, among others, closed a profitable location in Oakland, CA in 2024 for the first time in its history due to crime problems, and is just the latest in an upswing of companies deciding to relocate headquarters, or leave California completely.

Chevron, Schwab, Tesla & Oracle Also Relocated Out of California

In 2021, the financial services company, Charles Schwab moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Westlake, Texas and Tesla, the car company owned by Elon Musk, relocated most of its headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin, Texas.

Further, last year, the oil company Chevron announced plans to relocate headquarters to Houston, Texas from San Ramon, California and Oracle relocated its headquarters first to Texas and now to Nashville, Tennessee.

“The challenge is that California has become very densely populated so that the resource pool, land, and housing are all very limited so it becomes more and more expensive to live here,” Murphy told OrangeCountyLawyers.com. “People tend to move inland or out of California altogether.”

In-N-Out Burger, a family-owned business, has been headquartered in California for 30 years and has since added locations in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington state.

“In every decision about the future of In-N-Out Burger, I give strong consideration to what my grandparents and my family would think is best for our company,” In-N-Out Burger owner and president Lynsi Snyder wrote in a press release. “I know my family would be in support of this move because it brings our In-N-Out family back together in a way that helps us better serve our customers, who are the most important priority.”

Lynsi Snyder is the granddaughter of Harry and Esther Snyder who founded In-N-Out Burger, which was the state’s first hamburger drive through stand in 1948.

Related content:

• California’s declining competitiveness
• California losing businesses
• California’s wage increase stresses business owners

Current In-N-Out Burger corporate offices are located on Campus Drive in Irvine where it is estimated that some 500 workers are employed. It will reportedly maintain a West Coast base at its Baldwin Park office in the San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County.

“Some of our associates will be relocating to Tennessee, which makes it even more important to centralize our western headquarters in one location, and our company’s deepest roots are in Baldwin Park,” Snyder said. “Our West Coast family will be together in one place where In-N-Out Burger began.”

Murphy is unsurprised that the eatery is expanding because In-N-Out Burger and fast food, in general, is saturated in California.

“There’s probably no opportunity for growth here and we’re seeing some weakness in the fast food industry in general,” he said.

Weaknesses in the fast food industry include rising labor costs since the approval of Assembly Bill (AB) 1228 increased the minimum wage to $20 for fast food restaurant workers last year in April 2024. Since then, the state’s Fast Food Council (FFC) is considering another pay increase of up to 70 cents should a cost-of-living-adjustment motion move forward.

“Their profit margins aren’t that thick and they are pretty sensitive to their wage costs,” Murphy added in reference to In-N-Out Burger. “One thing I do notice about In-N-Outs when I travel there is they seem to have a lot of employees, especially at busy times. That’s probably calculated into their costs.”

In-N-Out Burger declined to comment.