The Secret Menu Fun Behind Our Favorite Fast-Food Places

I was surprised to find out that more places than In-n-Out have secret menu options.

Yesterday I had a day off and a trip to my very favorite burger place was already on my agenda.

In-n-Out, here I come!

I hadn’t been to In-n-Out for several weeks as it’s 5-miles to the west of me, and my current work location is 10-miles southeast. And to get there on the weekends, out by the racetrack, through the freeway construction where the highway and the freeways meet makes for a nightmare trip. So, I haven’t been there much in the past few months.

I was looking forward to my favorite meal — Animal style fries that I eat in the car on the way home, and an Animal style burger to eat for dinner later that night.

But the night before, as I scrolled through Facebook, I saw a picture of a Flying Dutchman from In-n-Out.

What? I’d never heard of that.

No bun, but with a layer of grilled onion rings. It looked tasty.

Just a note — I saw the picture on the left and thought they all came with the onion. They don’t. I got the version on the right. I know now that you have to add ‘wrapped in onions’.

Now, I’m aware of In-n-Out’s secret menu. I found out about it back in 1998. My next-door neighbors were going to In-n-Out and asked what I wanted. When I said just a cheeseburger, they asked if I wanted animal style.

Huh? What in the world was that?

It turned out that my neighbor, Deb, used to work for In-n-Out years before. So, she was all over their secret menu, which being in the early days of the internet, wasn’t too well advertised at that point yet.

An animal style burger is the patty fried with mustard, then it has extra sauce and grilled onions.

I tasted one and never went back.

And years later, when I discovered animal style fries — Oh My! I was in heaven. And no, do not ask me about the nutritional content of the animal style fries. I’ve never ever looked. I don’t even want to know. But I figure that since I only eat them once every month or two, a little indulgence is fine.

When I moved to Texas sixteen years ago, that was one of the things that I missed most in the move. This California girl raised on In-n-Out suddenly couldn’t get her In-n-Out fix except for the annual trips back to California.

In 2011, In-n-Out started slowly appearing in the Dallas area. When one opened in Irving, about a 45-minute drive away, we were there on their opening day. Waiting in line for over an hour, in the line that wrapped around the parking lot and down the street, with police hired to come monitor and direct traffic.

Yes, the police. I believe they were at every opening day of the newest In-n-Outs. In-n-Out coming to Texas was a big thing here! Probably because of so many transplanted Californians in our midst that missed their beloved chain.

I now am close to two locations. The Grapevine location is 11-miles from my front door. Yes, I measured. And have made that trip many times. Then they opened the one by the racetrack, only 5-miles away. Even better!

On my drive out there yesterday, I started wondering if there were other fast-food chains that had ‘secret menus’.

Oh my, yes! There are so many! Places I never knew. Thank you Google for answering that question for me.

Carl's Jr. Arby’s. Burger King. Taco Bell. Wendy’s, Jack in the Box….

The list goes on. Instead of recapping all the places I found, and highlighting some of their secret menu options, I thought it would be easier to share this link from Hack the Menu. They’ve already done all the hard work for us. They’ve already scoped out all the secret menu options at all these places. Go check them out and see if your favorite place is there and see what secrets they’ve been hiding in their menus.

You might find some pleasant surprises!

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