In-N-Out Heiress Lynsi Snyder Moves Family from California to Tennessee Amid East Coast Expansion
Billionaire In-N-Out Burger heiress Lynsi Snyder revealed Friday that she is relocating her family from California to Tennessee, following the company’s recent groundbreaking for its eastern expansion.
“There are a lot of great things about California, but raising a family is not easy here,” Snyder said during an appearance on Allie Beth Stuckey’s Relatable podcast. “Doing business is not easy here either.”
Snyder shared that the company is building a new office in Franklin, Tennessee, and that she plans to move there. Since 2010, she has served as In-N-Out’s president.
While the majority of In-N-Out’s stores remain in California, Snyder noted the significance of growing the business in Tennessee. “It will be wonderful to have an office there, expand the brand, and have our families — and others’ families — living nearby,” she added.
Snyder, a mother of four, has been married to Sean Ellingson since 2014.
In-N-Out Burger, founded by Snyder’s grandparents Harry and Esther Snyder in 1948, plans to close its headquarters in Irvine, California, by 2030 and return to its original office in Baldwin Park.
“My uncle opened the office in Irvine back in the ’90s,” Snyder explained. “When my dad took over running the business, we had moved to Northern California. It was really about family—avoiding conflict with his brother while managing the company.”
She continued, “When my dad came down and saw Irvine, he felt, ‘This isn’t us. This isn’t our roots, this isn’t my dad.’ So he wanted to move everyone back to Baldwin Park. He created a hybrid approach—moving many people back to Baldwin Park while Irvine kept growing. Sadly, my dad passed away a few years later.”
Snyder admitted that raising a family and running a business in California was “not easy.”
Harry and Esther Snyder opened the burger joint in 1948.
Snyder announced that corporate employees will either be relocated to the Baldwin Park office, just outside Los Angeles, or to the new headquarters in Tennessee.
In September 2024, the company that introduced California’s first “drive-thru” hamburger stand broke ground on a 100,000-square-foot office building in Franklin, Tennessee, according to News 2.
In-N-Out plans to open its first Tennessee restaurants by 2026.
While Snyder revealed she has declined invitations to open In-N-Out locations in Florida and several other East Coast states, she suggested further expansion could still be on the horizon.
“We can reach Tennessee from our Texas warehouse,” Snyder explained. “We won’t set up a meat processing facility there — where we prepare our beef patties — but we’ll maintain a warehouse. Texas will supply other states from there.”
Though Snyder didn’t specify which states might be next, she was candid about the challenges the company faces in California.
Snyder expressed frustration over issues ranging from rising crime to the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s mandate requiring restaurants to check customers’ vaccine cards during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There were so many pressures and hoops we had to jump through,” Snyder said.
“You had to do this, wear a mask, put up plastic barriers between us and our customers—it was really difficult,” she recalled. “Looking back, maybe we should have pushed back harder against some of those rules, despite the legal risks.”
In-N-Out’s refusal to check vaccine cards briefly forced the closure of its San Francisco locations, but Snyder insisted, “It was worth it.”
She also made the tough decision to close a store in Oakland, citing the area’s safety concerns.
“There were gunshots inside the store, a stabbing—it was absolutely dangerous,” Snyder shared during an interview with PragerU.
