Q: How do In-N-Out Burger restaurants get their palm trees to
cross so they form an X?
Q: How do In-N-Out Burger restaurants get their palm trees to cross so they form an X?
A: Well, reader, with a little time and a lot of patience. In-N-Out Burger gets the palm trees into the shape of an “X” by planting them at an angle when they’re still very young, then lashing them together until they have grown to the appropriate shape.
“If you cross them at the time of planting, they’ll grow into the X, but if you don’t (tie them), they’ll just turn and go straight at the sun,” said Carl Van Fleet, In-N-Out’s vice president of planning and general manager. “If you’ve seen them tied, they’re probably newly planted.”
The company creates palm tree X’s at as many of its locations as it can, said Van Fleet, as a tribute to one of the chain’s founders, Harry Snyder.
After Snyder’s death, his sons latched on to the idea as a remembrance of their dad. The crossed palm trees pay homage to a scene in Snyder’s favorite movie, 1963’s “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” Van Fleet said.
For those too young to remember, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” was a three-hour jokefest featuring some of the biggest names of the 1950s and 1960s – Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman and Mickey Rooney – in a wacky race to retrieve buried treasure, according to the Internet Movie Data Base.
