by Jon Styf
Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development has agreed to give In-N-Out Burgers a $2.75 million incentive payment as it creates an eastern territory office in Franklin.
A press release on the agreement said In-N-Out plans to invest $125.5 million in the state and it will open its first restaurants in Nashville in 2026. The restaurant group said there will be 277 jobs in Williamson County at a 100,000-square-foot office, set to begin construction in 2024 and finish by 2026.
The building will have jobs that support the restaurants, from operations management to HR and IT.
In-N-Out’s move was announced on Jan. 10 by Gov. Bill Lee at a press conference, but the incentive was not announced at that time. The State Funding Board meets on Feb. 15 and the incentive will likely be approved then.
In-N-Out has 385 restaurants in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Oregon and Colorado but the Nashville restaurants will be the first east of Texas.
“This expansion is significant for our company,” In-N-Out Owner and President Lynsi Snyder-Ellingson said in a press release. “For many years, we’ve heard requests from our customers in Tennessee to consider opening locations near them, further east than we’ve ever been. Our customers are our most important asset at In-N-Out, and we very much look forward to serving them in years to come and becoming part of the wonderful communities in the Volunteer State.”
The department consistently announces economic development projects without releasing the amount of incentives given to a company.
Later, that information is released before it will be voted on at State Funding Board meetings.
Last year, The Center Square asked why the department won’t release the incentives at the time a project is announced.
“Projects are announced when a company has made a commitment to make a capital investment and create new jobs in Tennessee,” wrote Lindsey Tipton, Public Information Officer for the TNECD. “Announcements are typically made prior to a public meeting (such as State Funding Board or a local government meeting) when the existence of the project would be revealed at that meeting.
“Due to state contracting laws, the contracts are not finalized at the time of an announcement. State public records laws provide that the contracts themselves and the information contained in those contracts are not considered public records until the contracts are finalized.”
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies. Styf is a reporter for The Center Square.
Photo “In-N-Out Burger” by Dan Nguyen. CC BY-NC 2.0.
