This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
The average UPS driver could earn up to $170,000 under a new contract that’s ruffling feathers in the tech world. But you don’t have to get behind the wheel or learn how to code to earn even more money at In-N-Out Burger.
The average pay of a store manager at the iconic fast-food chain is more than $180,000 per year — an amount that includes store profit-sharing, according to a new book penned by In-N-Out owner Lynsi Snyder. That’s well above industry standards, where the annual mean wage of a restaurant food manager is $63,820, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At Chipotle, a general manager’s average compensation is about $100,000.
“Yes, we pay well,” Snyder wrote in the book “The Ins-N-Outs of In-N-Out Burger: The Inside Story of California’s First Drive-Through and How it Became a Beloved Cultural Icon.”
Lynsi Snyder, the owner of In-N-Out, reveals new details about her family’s business in her new book, set to be released in October. Lynsi Snyder via BI
The October release of the book coincides with the 75th birthday of the Southern California burger institution. Insider received a copy of the 208-page book, where the billionaire burger heiress reveals how her grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder, built the business into one of the most beloved and respected fast-food chains in the US.
One secret to In-N-Out’s success is paying employees top wages – from burger flippers to managers.
“Offering the highest wages in the industry is one way we attract the best people to care for our customers,” Snyder wrote in the book.
Harry Snyder believed investing in people creates loyalty. Lynsi Snyder noted how her grandfather, in the early days of the business, loaned one of his workers $600 to buy a car so the employee’s father wouldn’t have to pick him up from late-night shifts.
“He knew that to develop loyal helpers, he needed to provide them with promotions, more responsibility, and more pay,” Snyder wrote. “He wanted his young hires to not only be able to afford cars, but also be able to buy houses, get married, and start families.”
But, Harry Snyder was a stickler regarding quality control and training. He didn’t hire just anyone to run his stores.
To become an In-N-Out manager, you must work up from the bottom and learn every role necessary to run a restaurant.
In the book, Lynsi Snyder describes how employees are rewarded, from entry-level cashiers to six-figure salary managers.
Entry-level employees are taught how to interact with customers “with a smile and genuine friendliness.” They also learn how to take orders accurately at the counter or through the drive-through.
Produce handling comes next. Employees learn to core and slice tomatoes, peel and dice potatoes, hand-leaf lettuce, and chop onion. Then, they are trained to host customers in the dining room.
“Each role comes with its own pay raise and job level,” Snyder wrote.
Once employees learn these early tasks, they can be “trusted with our burgers,” Lynsi Snyder wrote. She points out that “flipping burgers” is a “big achievement” at In-N-Out, not something someone settles for when another job doesn’t work out.
“When you flip burgers at In-N-Out, you’re in the captain’s chair. You’re steering the ship,” she wrote. “It’s no small task to get every single burger perfect.”
The average store manager has been with the company for over 15 years. In-N-Out supports employees through leadership training, Snyder wrote. In-N-Out champions a “slow growth” philosophy.
“Long ago, we decided to grow only as fast as we can develop quality leaders,” she wrote. “Strategically, that means that every operations leader has done the exact jobs as the associates they’re leading….they earned their way into their roles.”
In-N-Out, which has nearly 400 locations in the US, has remained a privately run family business since the Snyder family founded the company in 1948. Lynsi Snyder, 41, inherited control of the family business in 2017 and became one of the youngest billionaires in the US. Since becoming In-N-Out’s president in 2010, Snyder has expanded In-N-Out’s footprint to three new states — Texas, Oregon, and Colorado.
