What Does It Mean To Order Something Animal Style At In-N-Out?

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Next time you're near an In-N-Out Burger and feeling hungry and a tad adventurous, consider ordering your food Animal Style. No, this doesn't mean your server will throw it all into a trough for you and set it on the ground outside; instead, the kitchen staff will add extra ingredients to kick your order up a notch. For a burger, they'll cook your beef patty in mustard to let it soak up some tangy extra flavor. Plus, they'll add pickles, grill your onions instead of serving them raw, and throw on extra Thousand Island-style spread, making every bite both sweeter and more savory. If, like many others, you've ever wondered what's in the sauce at In-N-Out, it's essentially composed of mayonnaise, ketchup, and pickle relish. 

Want your french fries Animal Style? In-N-Out will add melted cheese, grilled onions, and the aforementioned burger spread onto them. And, according to users on Reddit, there are other items you can order Animal Style, including grilled cheese. Also, you can get your food Animal Style at any of In-N-Out's store locations in California, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Idaho, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington.

One of the best parts of In-N-Out's secret menu (or not-so-secret menu, as the beloved restaurant typically calls it), is that the Animal Style modification was born out of customer demand. The brand has long prided itself on customizing orders to patrons' preferences; it's part of the company culture. But the full narrative is a lot more interesting. 

In-N-Out's Animal Style probably goes back further than you'd think, having been launched in 1961 – and how it was actually invented will make you laugh. The reason behind the name was revealed by Lynsi Snyder, granddaughter of the popular restaurant's founders. According to her book, "The Ins-N-Outs of In-N-Out Burger" (via Business Insider), Snyder cited wild customers behaving like "animals" as the inspiration for the customization's name. The raucous patrons would blare their car horns and blast their music; they were known to litter, too. In more extreme cases, they even got into fights with each other. Thus, employees appropriately dubbed them "animals" (it was a good-natured title, Snyder said), and it stuck. 

The first Animal Style request came about when one of the "animals" observed a manager cooking himself a custom burger one evening. He inquired about it, the manager shared the details, and the patron asked if he could try one. He loved it, asked for it again and again, and that became the first instance of a "secret"-menu order at In-N-Out, which would become a longstanding and celebrated tradition at the restaurant.