LONE TREE — An In-N-Out Burger joint slated to pop up near Park Meadows Mall next year could attract more than 1,300 hungry carfuls of customers a day seeking the famous Double-Double at the iconic California eatery — and all that beef could generate monster-sized traffic jams for this fast-growing suburb.
The Lone Tree City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday night on whether to give the final OK to the fast-food chain, which plans to erect and open a 3,867-square-foot restaurant at 9171 Westview Road about a year from now.
Such enormous volume is expected at the Lone Tree In-N-Out, especially during its first year of operation, that the company is building a 26-car-deep drive-thru lane to handle the masses — the second-largest drive-thru queue among the burger chain’s more than 350 stores in six states, according to city documents.
There will also be 47 parking spaces for those who prefer to venture inside for their food.
“We expect to have a lot of interest in this site and people using In-N-Out,” said Justin Schmitz, director of public works and mobility for Lone Tree. “We want to make sure we can maximize access to that site and minimize impact to the nearby businesses.”
Those dual goals produced a nearly 250-page traffic impact study by In-N-Out that the company hopes will accommodate projected traffic levels over the next couple of decades, as both Lone Tree grows and the restaurant lures long-devoted and newly curious fans to partake in its always-fresh, never-frozen burgers and fries.
The restaurant will be located right near the confluence of Interstate 25 and C-470, which will give it a regional pull well beyond Douglas County.
The Lone Tree restaurant is one of three announced for Colorado and could be the first to open in the state, according to a site plan submitted by the company to city officials earlier this year. The other two are destined for Fort Collins and Colorado Springs, where In-N-Out will also be opening a regional distribution center.
In-N-Out has agreed to restripe Westview and Parkland roads just west of the mall to create a dedicated left-turn lane to keep traffic moving as smoothly as possible through the area. The company will also put up signs warning motorists not to park in adjoining businesses’ parking lots or block their driveways.
Mike Pepper, who owns the building that hosts a Fidelity Investments outlet right next to where the restaurant will be built, voiced his concerns to the Lone Tree Planning Commission last month about potential blockage of his entrance from cars spilling out of the drive-thru lane on to Westview Road.
After meeting with city officials, he said he’s satisfied that additional steps In-N-Out is ready to take to mitigate traffic impacts will work.
“We came up with additional signage to help direct traffic flow, additional no-parking signs and additional landscaping (to block views of his parking lot),” Pepper said. “We have to hope the In-N-Out is more of an amenity than a problem.”
The burger chain, which launched in 1948 in the Los Angeles-area community of Baldwin Park, is notorious for long drive-thru lines filled with fiercely loyal customers salivating for items off its simple, yet alluring, menu. The website Complex.com ranked In-N-Out locations in the Golden State based on the length of their drive-thru lines, while L.A. Magazine called the chain’s snaking drive-thru lines a “public menace.”
Foodbeast chronicled the phenomenon in a 2014 article titled “The 8 Longest In-N-Out Lines According to Google Maps.”
In minutes from last month’s Lone Tree planning commission meeting, In-N-Out official Aaron Anderson told the city that the company understands “possible overflow queues” and has “specialized experienced techniques” to deal with them.
“Mr. Anderson said they have a team dedicated to this very topic called All Stars, who are specialists in opening stores and do so around the country,” the minutes state.
The company has also agreed to implement a traffic management plan in concert with the city, though details are sketchy as to what that will encompass exactly. Messages left with Anderson and two other marketing officials with In-N-Out were not returned Monday.
Schmitz, the public works director with Lone Tree, said traffic volume should “normalize over time” as the novelty of the restaurant wears off and additional In-N-Outs are opened in the metro area. Nearly 20 years ago, the opening of Colorado’s first Krispy Kreme doughnut store — also in Lone Tree — resulted in massive traffic tie-ups as people sought out the soft, sugar-filled snack rings. Those lines are long gone.
For Kent Rogers, a 14-year resident of Lone Tree and a regular In-N-Out customer when he lived in Orange County, Calif., the future burger shop on Westview Road is a welcome addition. It will replace a Suds Factory Car Wash & Auto Detailing Center.
“I’m excited there’s going to be one,” he said.
But with a busy Chick-fil-A just a few hundred feet away, which during Monday’s lunch rush was manifesting its own drive-thru drama, he wonders if an unwanted mash-up of burger and chicken traffic from the two fast-food titans will produce an artery-clogging mess on Westview Road.
That makes it wise that In-N-Out is prepping for robust capacity at its Lone Tree location, Rogers said.
“Douglas County is going through rapid growth and a lot of Californians are moving here,” he said. “And they know In-N-Out.”
