America’s favorite burger chain opens first-of-its-kind restaurant in California… located beside a sprawling $1billion new park

In-N-Out has opened its latest California restaurant in a location unlike almost any other in its history – right beside a sprawling public park, sports fields and a huge new shopping and dining development.

For fans of the fast-food chain, there are few things more exciting than spotting those famous red-and-yellow signs going up.

But the newest outpost of the cult California burger chain has caused an especially big stir – because this one is unlike the typical In-N-Out.

Store No. 443 has opened at 7900 Great Park Boulevard in Irvine, California, placing the burger joint directly alongside the enormous Great Park and its soccer fields, baseball diamonds and tennis facilities.

And while the restaurant still has the all-important drive-thru, its parkside setting marks something of a departure for a company that has traditionally favored roadside locations and large plots of land where cars can easily queue.

The new restaurant forms part of The Canopy, a 12-acre shopping and dining development being built at Great Park.

The wider Great Park transformation has been billed as a $1 billion project, turning the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro site into a vast public destination with parks, sports facilities, cultural attractions, retail and entertainment. 

For In-N-Out, meanwhile, the location provides a chance to put its famously simple menu in the middle of one of Southern California’s biggest new developments.

The new Irvine restaurant measures about 3,860 square feet, with 84 indoor seats and 36 seats on an outdoor patio.

Its drive-thru can accommodate up to 33 vehicles – a useful feature for a chain whose most popular restaurants can attract substantial queues. 

The restaurant is an anchor tenant at The Canopy, that will eventually contain more than 90,000 square feet of restaurants, retail and everyday services. 

And that setting is what makes the new restaurant particularly unusual. Rather than sitting beside a major highway or being surrounded primarily by parking lots, it backs onto Great Park’s sports facilities and is within walking distance of a huge public recreational space.

The park itself is expected to cover roughly 1,300 acres when the transformation is complete – making it larger than New York City’s 843-acre Central Park. 

The In-N-Out officially opened on September 4, with normal hours running from 10.30am to 1am Sunday through Thursday and until 1.30am on Fridays and Saturdays. 

The chain’s own location page confirms that the restaurant offers both drive-thru and dine-in seating. 

For a company that now has more than 400 restaurants and more than 44,000 employees, the scale of the Irvine development is a long way from where In-N-Out began.

Harry and Esther Snyder opened the first In-N-Out in Baldwin Park, California, in 1948. The tiny drive-thru hamburger stand was designed around a simple idea: customers could order from their cars and receive fresh food quickly.

Harry Snyder later introduced a two-way speaker system that allowed customers to order without leaving their vehicles – an innovation that helped establish the drive-thru model that became a defining part of American fast food.

More than seven decades later, In-N-Out remains fiercely protective of that formula.

The chain continues to operate a deliberately limited menu of burgers, fries and drinks, while emphasizing fresh ingredients and avoiding the freezers, microwaves and heat lamps used by many fast-food competitors. 

It also remains privately owned and family-run, with Lynsi Snyder, Harry and Esther’s granddaughter, serving as president.

Despite its relatively limited geographic footprint, In-N-Out has developed a cult-like following – and its restaurants are among the highest-performing burger locations in the country.

Restaurant-industry data showed In-N-Out generating average annual sales of approximately $5.8 million per restaurant in 2024, across 415 locations at the time. 

The company has also continued its cautious expansion beyond its traditional California base, most recently adding restaurants in states including Tennessee and Washington. 

The excitement surrounding the Great Park restaurant was evident long before the doors opened.

Residents watching the construction shared drone footage and photographs online, while Reddit users speculated about when they would finally be able to order their first Double-Double at the new location.

One Irvine commenter wrote that they would ‘definitely try it’ and immediately named their preferred order: ‘Double double, animal fries, chocolate shake.’

Another simply said: ‘Can’t go wrong with an In-N-Out.’

But the excitement has been mixed with a healthy dose of concern about what thousands of hungry customers could do to local traffic.

‘I can’t imagine what the lines will be like when it opens,’ one commenter wrote.

Another dubbed it the ‘newest Traffic Congestion Generator,’ while another joked: ‘I’m gonna be smelling burgers all day, and fighting traffic to get home lol.’

Others were even more blunt.

‘I’ll either walk there or park in the lot to go inside. Drive thru is too long and a complete waste of time,’ one person wrote.

Another complained that the area was already congested and predicted the restaurant would make matters worse. 

One particularly unhappy resident called In-N-Out a ‘blight’ on the neighborhood and complained about potential traffic, accidents and litter.

But not everyone sees the arrival as a problem. One commenter pointed out that the Great Park neighborhood currently had ‘no restaurants and grocery stores,’ arguing that a commercial center was needed. 

The new In-N-Out may be grabbing the headlines, but it is just one piece of a much bigger transformation underway at Great Park.

Irvine’s plans for the sprawling 1,300-acre park include botanical gardens, museums, a veterans memorial park, cultural spaces and upgrades to the existing sports complex, alongside new retail and dining destinations.

There is also a major entertainment element in the works, including a 10,000-seat open-air amphitheater.