Lynsi Snyder-Ellingson said Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma are among the states In-N-Out Burger is considering for future expansion. She made the comments in a nearly 50-minute interview with Terry Crews tied to In-N-Out Burger's 78th anniversary.
The three states sit along or near the chain's distribution corridor between Texas and Tennessee, giving the company a practical map for its controlled eastward growth. In-N-Out Burger has already announced plans to open locations in New Mexico for the first time.
Terry Crews interview
“If you look at the map, you've got Texas. There's Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma,” Snyder-Ellingson said in the interview. “There's some states there that are possibilities, you could say.”
She also said the company keeps a state-by-state record of customer requests for new restaurants. “We have a whole sheet of the different states and how many requests we get from each state,” she said.
In-N-Out's expansion method
In-N-Out Burger weighs customer demand, real estate research, distribution logistics and controlled growth when choosing new markets. The company operates in 10 states, and Snyder-Ellingson said it could supply Tennessee restaurants from its Texas distribution operation.
That same approach has already taken the chain into Tennessee. In December 2025, it opened its first Tennessee restaurants and now has five locations there, while an eastern regional headquarters in Franklin is expected to open by the end of 2026.
Snyder-Ellingson on growth
Snyder-Ellingson said she and her husband had originally considered settling in Colorado before changing their minds. She also said she has no plans to pursue rapid nationwide expansion, and added, “If I ever felt like we were slipping or losing our way, growth would look a lot differently,”
For readers in Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma, the near-term question is not whether the chain can expand east, but which market fits its demand sheet, logistics and real-estate standards first.
