From a distance, the scene appears to show a couple enjoying a meal at In-N-Out. Look a little closer, though, and it becomes clear this is not an ordinary visit to the beloved burger chain.
Food influencer Grace Lewis, 48, who goes by Crazy Korean Cooking online and has 2.1 million TikTok followers, was looking for a project for her next video, so decided to replicate the West Coast-famous burger chain in New Jersey so her parents could try it for the first time.
Grace Lewis said the project started with a simple thought: create something lighthearted and memorable for her family. “Let’s do something quick, you know, something quick and fun, whatever,” she told the Daily Mail.
The idea soon took shape around In-N-Out, the West Coast staple that her parents had never had the chance to try. “I was like: ‘You know what, why don’t we try to do like In-N-Out? It’s on the West Coast, people love it, everyone loves it, it would be nice to take mom and dad there. Obviously, we don’t have it, but it would be really interesting to try to make it at home,’” Lewis recalled.
Lewis and her sister began digging into In-N-Out recipes, ingredient lists and old promotional clips, hoping to capture the details that make the chain so recognizable. They quickly discovered, however, that recreating the experience would take far more effort than picking up burger patties and buns at a supermarket.
The sisters ended up making nearly everything from scratch, including the American cheese, ketchup, mustard, relish, pickles and burger buns. They also went beyond the food, carefully re-creating the company’s branding, uniforms and even the feel of a drive-thru visit.
Lewis, who named her homemade fast-food setup Out-N-In, said the challenge grew quickly. “It sounds easy, it’s a burger,” she said. “But once we started, it quickly turned into something much bigger than we expected.”
According to Lewis, she and her sister have a habit of building on one another’s ideas, and this project was no exception. What began as a family meal expanded into custom packaging and, eventually, the transformation of a spare window beside the driveway into a working drive-thru.
Grace Lewis, 48, created a replica of the West Coast-famous In-N-Out at her New Jersey home so her elderly parents could experience it.
Her mom, 70, ordered a double-double animal style, while her dad, 76, ordered a 4×4 animal style. Both enjoyed their meals, which included animal-style fries and garlic pickle chips
Lewis’ father is pictured placing his order at the drive-thru window of their home in New Jersey
Lewis turned a spare window on the side of her house, next to the driveway, into a makeshift drive-thru window
The deeper they researched, the more they discovered that In-N-Out’s ingredients weren’t quite as ordinary as they expected.
The chain’s ketchup doesn’t contain corn syrup, its pickles are flavored with garlic oil rather than dill and even its burger buns follow a distinctive slow-rise process.
‘We went through all the ingredient list and some old promotional videos that introduce their production process and some history,’ Lewis told the Daily Mail.
She said she made the buns six times to get them perfect, despite being gluten-free.
The bread ultimately proved to be the hardest part of the project. Lewis said baking was far less forgiving than cooking because mistakes couldn’t be fixed halfway through, forcing her to start over until she got the texture just right.
Because she couldn’t properly taste the buns herself, she relied on her sister – the only member of the family who had actually eaten at In-N-Out – to decide when they were finally close enough to the real thing.
Another discovery during their research helped shape the finished project.
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‘During our research, I found out that they were the first ones to adapt the speaker system for the drive-thru,’ Lewis said.
The Out-N-In sign created by Lewis, a comedic twist on the classic In-N-Out experience
She recreated all the branding and the recipes from scratch with the help of her sister. It took them nearly a week to do
Inspired by that history, the sisters transformed a spare window beside the family’s driveway into a makeshift ordering station, complete with a menu board and speaker.
The recreation held special meaning because Lewis’ parents moved to the United States from South Korea about five years ago and had never tried In-N-Out.
Because they weren’t comfortable ordering through a speaker in English, Lewis said they also had never placed a drive-thru order on their own.
When everything was finally ready, her parents pulled into the driveway and ordered just as they would at a real In-N-Out.
Her mother, 70, chose a Double-Double animal style, while her father, 76, ordered a 4×4 animal style, along with animal-style fries, a shake and a Lemon-Up.
‘They really loved it,’ Lewis said.
For Lewis, seeing them comfortably place their first drive-thru order was just as rewarding as finally serving them the famous burgers.
Everyone’s favorite part of the meal was the sauce.
‘The sauce was really good,’ she said. ‘The fries, oh my god! The fries with the sauce, with the onion – caramelized onion – it was so good.’
Lewis said this was her parents’ first time experiencing a drive-thru
Lewis’ father excitedly eyeing his burger. Everyone enjoyed the animal-style sauce, Lewis told the Daily Mail
Lewis joked that perhaps the biggest irony of the entire project was spending nearly a week painstakingly recreating a meal designed to be served in minutes.
‘It’s fun as a concept because it’s not something people do,’ she said. ‘You’re making fast food at home – but in the slowest way possible.’
In-N-Out was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Irvine, California. It has more than 400 stores but famously does not have any outlets on the East Coast.
It does not franchise and refuses to use frozen beef. Its closest location to the East Coast is Nashville, Tennessee.
