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Comment by zach | Hacker News Reader

Taco Bell has at least fifty menu items (not to mention their multi-brand restaurants). In-N-Out has, well, burgers, fries, shakes and soft drinks.

Okay, In-N-Out does a great job. But a Taco Bell kitchen is about the same size, yet produces a substantially larger menu.

How do they pull it off? Middleware. At In-N-Out, they make food out of potatoes, buns and refrigerated beef. At Taco Bell, they make food out of ingredient bags which are processed and packaged off-site. In-N-Out is something that a chef can respect -- Taco Bell is not.

But it's worth pointing out that In-N-Out can thrive only because their market doesn't demand a wide-ranging product. Sometimes markets move in that direction, and the artisans -- who cannot abide using middleware, who want to make everything to their high standards -- have a hard time competing.

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In-N-Out has the highest profit per location and one of the highest employee retention rates of any fast food restaurant. Their ability to expand is limited more by their refusal to ever freeze their ingredients than anything else (they must stay within X distance of their cattle ranches).

Its a really impressive company, and one that I think backs up Jason's point. There was an amazing article on them recently that I'm struggling to find, if someone has the link and could post it that would be great (BusinessWeek?).

But every In-N-Out I've ever been to has a line out the door. Taco Bell may have a larger menu but I doubt they have anywhere near the per-store revenues or profit margin of an In-N-Out.

> But every In-N-Out I've ever been to has a line out the door.

That could also be explained by the fact that there are far less In-N-Out locations than Taco Bell, so one store has to handle demand from over a larger area than Taco Bells.

If In-N-Out has the same density of locations as a Taco Bell, the per-store revenues will be quite different.

Right -- they have a line out the door because that's how their artisanal revenue model works -- producing their specialty in great quantity.

The many Krispy Kreme franchises in In-N-Out's territory had those kinds of lines out the door once too, but went bust when the lines got short.

Kogi BBQ is the epitome of this model -- they have unfathomably long lines and few locations, but spread their resources around by being mobile.

Sure but lets put it in context of this article. If I were looking to open one fast food franchise, I'd much rather be in the In-N-Out, do one thing well camp then Taco Bell's give them anything world.

(this isn't to say Taco Bell's business is poor, I'd just rather do what In-N-Out does)

Taco Bell is also pretty successful, and that contradicts the article. Other contradictory examples are Olive Garden and The Cheesecake Factory, both of which have extensive menus and are wildly succesful, the latter also having the same scarcity dynamics and lines as In-N-Out.

Articles like this are annoying. There are multiple ways to success, and presenting one as clearly better than others when there are so many counterexamples is disingenuous.

In-N-Out has a simple menu, above average ingredient quality, and treats their workers pretty well. All great qualities. But it's pretty evident, especially when it comes to food, that you can be bad in all those areas and still be successful, and perhaps even outcompete those who are better than you, if you focus on price and consistency, even if the thing you're consistent at is being mediocre.

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