By Daniel Tedford & Nick of Shatto (reliable source)
In-N-Out 25-cent burgers a hoax
Anyone who was planning to break open their piggy bank for a discounted In-N-Out anniversary burger can put the change away. The rumors of 1960s prices next week at the hamburger joint are plainly untrue.
The popular hamburger restaurant, which first opened in Baldwin Park, will be celebrating its 60th anniversary Oct. 22. A rumor had been circulating through e-mails suggesting prices would drop to a quarter for hamburgers, 30 cents for cheeseburgers, 15 cents for french fries, and 10 cents for drinks.
But In-N-Out President Mark Taylor ended speculation in a statement calling the rumor "untrue."
"We've always tried to keep our prices low as possible in order to give our customers the greatest value," Taylor said in the statement. "One of the ways we accomplish this is by not discounting, and our anniversary is no exception."
Jake Arellano, of West Covina, saw the rumor posted on a MySpace.com blog last week, but was hesitant to believe it.
"I thought it was outrageous," he said.
But once he started seeing it on more blogs, he became a believer. To be sure, he checked the In-N-Out's Web site and found it to be false, to his disappointment.
In-N-Out first heard about the hoax Tuesday when company employees started receiving e-mails and text messages from friends, said In-N-Out Vice President of Planning and Development Carl Vanfleet.
"It seems that the ease of this stuff's ability to spread is certainly
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multiplied by text messaging and the Internet," Vanfleet said. "It is the first time we have seen anything like this before."
The company can trace the hoax as far back as Monday night, but are clueless as to when it started and where it came from, Vanfleet said. In-N-Out has been working hard to inform the public of the rumor, posting a press release on the company Web site, posting at places such as Yahoo.com, and having rumor Web site Snopes.com post the rumor as untrue, Vanfleet said.
After the rumor started filling up inboxes, the company received about double its normal daily call volume Tuesday and Wednesday, Vanfleet said.
The company isn't planning to post any notifications in restaurants at this point, but isn't ruling out the idea.
"Not sure if we are going to change our mind on that a week from now," Vanfleet said. "There are still, probably, some people who will get the e-mail and believe it is true."