One man’s unflinching quest to bring In-N-Out to New York City

For California transplants living in New York City, one of their greatest longings is to bite into a juicy In-N-Out burger. This is not hyperbole. In 2019, the internet went crazy about a pristine Double-Double that was found on the streets of Queens. Countless articles were written about the saga. Fans went wild speculating that In-N-Out might be on the verge of opening a restaurant in the city that never sleeps. Alas, it was simply dropped by a Queens high schooler who had just flown back from California.

But now, one Bay Area native is on a quest to lure the beloved burger chain to the Big Apple, one frozen, vacuum sealed In-N-Out burger at a time.

“I’m a little obsessed about it,” Spencer Farrar, a retired colonel in the Marine Corps living in New York City, recently told SFGATE. On Jan. 16, he posted to the In-N-Out subreddit his detailed method of preserving and savoring Double-Doubles in the comfort of his Upper West Side apartment. “I’m a big, big fan for sure.” Farrar hopes his efforts will create a groundswell, pushing In-N-Out to “finally acknowledge the New York and East Coast market.”

When he’s not obsessing about In-N-Out, Farrar, 55, works for Krilla Kaleiwahea, an organization that promotes the economic growth and cultural heritage preservation of Native Hawaiians. For work, and as an avid ultramarathon runner, he travels a lot. Whenever he visits a city that has an In-N-Out, he inevitably makes one last pit stop just before the airport and orders around a dozen burgers to take on the plane with him in an extra carry-on bag. Then, upon entering his apartment, he seals them immediately. At any given time, he likely has 10 to 12 burgers sitting in his freezer.

“I’ll be honest, I’ve had In-N-Outs that I have frozen for over a year and it still tastes great,” Farrar confessed.

So how is he able to eat Double-Doubles on his couch in New York City whenever he pleases?

First, he plans ahead. When traveling, he brings an empty carry-on to “transport the goods” back home. In order to prevent the bun from getting soggy, he orders the most basic of basic burgers, though. No lettuce. No tomatoes. No sauce on the burger. Cheese is best ordered cold (which is a recently new technique he learned from a Reddit commenter after posting his method in the subthread).

Upon receiving his order, Farrar stores two to three burgers in gallon-sized Ziplock bags and layers prefrozen cold packs around them. (Before he started bringing an extra carry-on bag for the burgers, you could smell them throughout the plane, he said.) They hold for the entire flight, especially if on a direct flight, according to Farrar. The most important step, he said, is to vacuum seal the burgers immediately upon arriving home — only until about 75% of the air is gone; otherwise, they will flatten. Then, he sticks them in the freezer.

When the hankering hits for an In-N-Out burger, defrost the burger in the microwave (defrost mode specifically, according to Farrar) for about 45 seconds to detach it from the bun, reheat the patty in a toaster oven set at 325 degrees for around eight minutes and toast the bun separately. Then, add your desired accoutrements and dig in.

“I think I have a pretty good way to bring it back to life,” he said. “I swear to you, it’s almost just as good as the real thing.”

Why does Farrar go through all this trouble when there are so many good burger joints in New York City? Much of it has to do with the cult-like status of the West Coast brand.

“A lot of the appeal of In-N-Out is the nostalgia for California,” Farrar explained. “The quirky history, the cryptic religious notes on the cups. It’s a little part of California here on the East Coast that I think a lot of people crave.”

Farrar was born in Redwood City and was stationed at Camp Pendleton near San Diego while serving in the Marines. He fondly remembers going to downtown San Diego when he and his buddies would have the weekends off. A stop at In-N-Out was always on the itinerary. In fact, the first Double-Double he had was in 1993 during one of those weekends.

“It was like a go-to food for us in those days,” he said.

After attending business school, starting in 1999, he briefly lived in San Francisco for about two years. Unfortunately, the Fisherman’s Wharf In-N-Out had not yet been built, and the closest storefront was way out in Pinole.

“It was sort of like that movie ‘Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle,’” Farrar said. “It was like a 35-40 minute drive from downtown San Francisco.”

In 2015, he started experimenting with bringing his precious In-N-Out back to the East Coast. He was in Los Angeles and carried some burgers on the flight with him, but they ended up totally soggy, he said. He then tried zip-close bags and later aluminum foil, but he couldn’t get the burgers to taste very fresh, usually because of the freezer burn. Then it dawned on him: He had to try a vacuum sealer. Currently, Farrar uses a FoodSaver vacuum sealer not just for the burgers but also to transport New York everything bagels with him on his travels.

After tweaking his reheating techniques, he landed on a fairly foolproof method to eat his beloved burgers on the East Coast.

“Thank God the vacuum sealer came out,” he joked.

While some of his friends and family think what he does is “nuts,” Farrar enjoys handing them out to friends who are from California but are living in New York like him.

“I give it to them as, you know, a holiday present or just to kind of give people cheer,” he said. “It’s sort of a novel currency here in New York because obviously, there aren’t any.”

Sometimes, Farrar will eat them out on the street, hoping passersby will notice and ask him how he’s able to eat In-N-Out in New York. About a year ago, he left a Double-Double wrapper in Times Square to see if it would generate any buzz, like the story back in 2019 did. Alas, it did not.

All of this commitment to and passion for In-N-Out is to hopefully grab the attention of corporate and show how desperate people are for an In-N-Out in New York.

“I would quit my job immediately to open up the first In-N-Out here,” he said.