Managers at In-N-Out Get Shockingly Huge Paycheck

In-N-Out is famous for its secret menu, but perhaps the fast-food chain's most shocking secret is the six-figure salaries its managers are pulling down. The California Sun reports managers at In-N-Out make more than $160,000 a year on average. That's more than the average software engineer, lawyer, or architect working in California makes and approximately triple what the average restaurant manager makes. "In-N-Out is just eons above everybody else," says Saru Jayaraman, head of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley. "On wages and benefits, they really are the best large chain."

In-N-Out workers start at $13 an hour, and a review of the company on Glassdoor says "you can move up fairly quickly." In fact, In-N-Out employees can get promoted to manager—and that six-figure salary—without a college degree. KTVU reports In-N-Out managers are responsible for hiring, training, service, quality, work environment, and more at a single location. Glassdoor recently ranked In-N-Out as the fourth best place to work in the US—ahead of even Google—despite employees warning that "the job itself can get a little bit stressful at times." More than 90% of former employees would recommend working at In-N-Out to a friend, and In-N-Out's Lynsi Snyder is the 36th highest rated CEO per Glassdoor stats, which list her as having a 94% employee approval rating. (More In-N-Out stories.)