Jack & Spike take on coverage of In-N-Out Burger opening in Washington

Breaking news! Are you ready to drive over 2 1/2 hours from Seattle to wait eight hours in a line, maybe, nine months from now for a cheeseburger?

Famed West Coast restaurant chain In-N-Out Burger announced plans to open its first location in the state of Washington Thursday, according to a statement from the company provided to MyNorthwest.

Fast food in the PNW: First In-N-Out Burger to come to the state of Washington

The chain will open a restaurant in the city of Ridgefield, which is north of Vancouver in Clark County.

“We recently filed a development application with the city of Ridgefield for a site,” In-N-Out Vice President of Store Development Mike Abbate said in the statement. “However, it is still very early in the development process, so we are hopeful for a positive outcome, as we work with the city in pursuit of our permits and approvals.”

Ridgefield City Manager Steve Stuart provided a statement to MyNorthwest Thursday night confirming the city has received a building permit application from In-N-Out Burger for a location in the Ridgefield Union Ridge Town Center development. He went on to explain that the city has worked with In-N-Out to provide a structure that will avoid street issues for residents that also compliments the city.

“Our permitting and engineering team has worked closely with In-N-Out to ensure they are not only creating enough queuing spaces to avoid backups onto roads, but also that the design of the building will be unique, high-quality and complimentary to Ridgefield,” Stuart said in the statement.

Jack and Spike speak out about the upcoming In-N-Out Burger

Jack Stine, one of the hosts of “The Jack and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM was not impressed with the news or the local media’s coverage of the development.

“The thing that’s disappointing to me about this is that this kind of loop back into the argument that I’ve been making for some time that we are obsessed with consumerism to the point where a a pseudo-religious institution like In-N-Out Burger coming to the Pacific Northwest is considered to be the Marquee story for our (media) to talk about,” Jack said during a segment on Friday’s show.

Jack, who hails from California where In-N-Out got its start, also isn’t impressed by the restaurant chain’s burgers and other food available.

“I am from the fine Golden State,” Jack said. “So, whenever anybody comes to visit from out of state they say, ‘Please, please can we go to In-N-Out Burger?’ and I say, ‘You ready for a mid-tier cheeseburger? You ready for some really underdeveloped cardboard french fries? You ready for this you ready for this?’ Yeah it is not as good as people make it out to be.”

Jack went on to call In-N-Out the Johnny Depp of the burger world. There’s a distinct reason why he chose that analogy.

“In the ’90s and in the mid 2000s it was doing amazing work and now it’s not,” Jack said. “It’s a little played out. It’s kind of a dead meme. Everybody kind of gets the what’s going on there.”

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Co-host Spike O’Neill countered Jack’s argument about the local media coverage by looking on the “bright side” a bit.

“We have a great town. We have a great state when we can we can lead with a new In-N-Out Burger franchise,” Spike said.

Jack responded by noting that, as Americans, we need to be more educated we need to have more investment in our news.

“The argument that I would make is that this coverage of the first In-N-Out Burger three hours away from Seattle is an indicator of our media diet, no pun intending, which is that people are more interested in something that they can consume rather than mitigating the suffer suffering of others,” Jack said.

Contributing: Benjamin Huffman and Laura Scott, KIRO Newsradio

Steve Coogan is the lead editor of My Northwest. You can read more of his stories here. Follow Steve on X, formerly known as Twitter, here and email him here.

Listen to Jack and Spike weekdays from noon-3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.