The fuse was lit a week ago. I was in a cab going from a Lake Tahoe conference to the airport in Reno. A beautiful drive of snowy mountains, tall trees and the occasional deer. Once out of the mountains you enter the valley and civilization. Strip centers and office complexes line the highway leading to the airport. And restaurants. Lots of restaurants. I looked to my right and saw an In-N-Out Burger just off of the highway, conveniently located near an exit. My heart starting racing.

"Look!", I said to the cab driver, "An In-N-Out Burger!" I briefly had forgotten that he told me that he makes the roundtrip drive between Tahoe and Reno 4-6 times a day.

Quickly heading off what he knew from experience was coming next he said, "You're not going to be one of those passengers who gets all excited, and then asks me to pull off the highway, and go through the drive-thru lane are you?"

"I guess not," I said. And we continued on to the airport.

I have just returned from a two-day visit to Phoenix, which also has In-N-Out Burgers. My first day there I was good. I ate in the restaurants I was there to visit, but couldn't get In-N-Out off my mind. Back in the hotel room late that evening, after sending and replying to e-mails, I went back to my car, plugged In-N- Out into the GPS and followed the directions. Fortunately they were open till 1:00 a.m. and I still had time for a leisurely three course meal (burger, fry, shake).

If you live in California, Utah, Arizona or Nevada you know what I mean. You probably have one of the 200 In-N-Out's within a short drive from where you live (in college that would have been considered 2 hours or less). You also know what I mean when I refer to the secret menu at In-N-Out. Not the secret menu that is listed on their website as the "Not-So-Secret Menu". That is a marketing person exercising damage control by making you believe that the "whisper menu" that out-of-towners have heard about, but don't know where to find, is limited to the 6 items on the website. I mean the full-blown secret menu. 

First, some background. In-N-Out Burger has a really, really, really limited menu. 
Your official choices are:

·         Double-Double (two patties, two slices of cheese)

·         Cheeseburger (one patty, one slice of cheese)

·         Hamburger (don't make me spell this one out for you)

·         French Fries (one size, no choices of small, medium or large)

·         Shakes (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, and no choice of sizes)

·         Fountain drinks (choice of sizes, you don't want to make Coke mad)

In-N-Out is an old-fashioned place. The burger patties are fresh, never frozen, and the fries are cut from potatoes right in front of you, and then put into the fryer. The milk shakes are made from ice cream. They are also old-fashioned in that they want to please their customers by making their food the way that they want it. And out of this, over the decades, a secret menu has evolved. It became a formalized way of doing things on an informal basis. It was a reward for being a regular customer, and made you feel like an insider.

The "Not-So-Secret" menu on the website covers the big six:

·         Double Meat (no cheese)

·         3 X 3 (3 patties, 3 cheese slices)

·         4 X 4 (think for yourself on this one)

·         Grilled Cheese (two slices of cheese, lettuce, tomato)

·         Protein Style (burger is wrapped in leaf lettuce, no bun)

·         Animal Style (mustard cooked patty, extra spread and grilled onions)

The rest of the secret menu follows:

·         2 X 4 (2 patties, four slices of cheese)

·         3 by Meat (3 patties, no cheese)

·         Cheese Fries (fries with 2 slices of melted cheese)

·         Animal Style Fries (fries with cheese, spread, and grilled onions)

·         Flying Dutchman (2 patties, 2 slices of cheese, nothing else, no bun)

·         Fries Well-Done (extra crispy, cooked longer)

·         Fries Light (undercooked in my opinion)

·         Neapolitan Shake (strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla mixed together)

If you order any of these items by these names, even though they do not appear on the menu, you will not only get them without question, they will appear on the printed receipt with these names. This is "Have it Your Way" on steroids. The next time you can get your cab driver to pull off of the highway for you, give the secret menu a try.