The cruel April Fool's joke notwithstanding, has an In-N-Out been installed in a former yogurt shop on 23rd and Park Avenue South?
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The Guest of a Guest blog thinks so. Armed with a camera, they posted side-by-side comparisons of the Fresh & Fast at 111 E. 23rd St and your archetypal California In-N-Out. The prices are two to three times the price of In-N-Out, presumably because rents are astronomical in the Flatiron District.
Yelpers don't think so, incidentally; the reviews including comparisons to our favorite burger chain are uniformly negative. There are disturbing mentions of cucumbers–not pickles, cucumbers–on the burger, which would never happen at In-N-Out.
Lynsi Martinez, the scion of the Snyder family who started In-N-Out, has said repeatedly that the family has no plans franchise the In-N-Out name or go public; they've never yet reneged on that promise, and no In-N-Out is more than a day's drive from Baldwin Park, California, so someone in New York is coming perilously close to trademark violation.
Sorry, New Yorkers. We'd like to point out that it's going to be 95°F and humid tomorrow in Manhattan; here at the Weekly World Headquarters, which is just a stone's throw from three In-N-Outs, it will be 74°F. Come visit–and pick up a copy of our print edition when you do, because you'll need something to read while you wait for your real In-N-Out double-double animal style. In the meantime, brave the line at Shake Shack or head uptown to the Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien.
