LAYTON — There will be no double-doubles coming to town.
In-N-Out Burger has decided not to build one of the two northern Utah locations it had been working toward since spring of 2010.
The popular hamburger chain based in California had been planning on locations in Layton and Riverdale. However, last week the company informed Layton officials that the location in their city is no longer in the company’s plans.
“We will be going forward with the Riverdale project but, unfortunately, we are not moving forward on the Layton project,” said Carl Van Fleet, vice president of planning and development for In-N-Out Burger, in an email to the Standard-Examiner. “We hope to have Riverdale open in 2012 but a lot still has to happen there.”
Van Fleet said that the canceled project was still in the very early stages and the company had not finalized anything with the city. On Nov. 31, 2010, In-N-Out Burger applied for a site plan permit to build in Layton and since had been working on getting things ready for a new restaurant.
“As we went through the various preliminary stages of project development, it became clear that we just couldn’t make that site work for us,” Van Fleet said. “We do want to be in Layton someday and we will continue to look for good opportunities there.”
City officials were obviously disappointed at In-N-Out Burger’s decision.
“There had been a lot of excitement about In-N-Out Burger and we certainly wish their future location in Riverdale well,” said Ben Hart, Layton’s community and development specialist. “If they can establish a good market maybe they will come back in a few years.”
Hart said In-N-Out Burger told Layton that the company needed to focus on its new locations in Texas.
“Their reasoning to us was their major expansion in Texas and they have a lot of resources dedicated to that area and they feel now they need to dedicate all available resources to that expansion in Texas,” Hart said.
Randy Daily, Riverdale’s community development director, said that In-N-Out Burger owns the land on the Toys-R-Us parcel of property, located at 4040 Riverdale Road.
“They’re going to start construction in spring of 2012,” Daily said. “As soon as the weather breaks, which could be as early as March.”
In-N-Out Burger had done some work with Layton city regarding the proposed site on the southwest corner of the Reams property on the corner of Gordon Avenue and Main Street. Currently a Rancheritos Mexican Food restaurant is there and Hart said that Rancheritos had been given approval to move to a site on Main Street adjacent to the Home Depot. However, with In-N-Out Burger not coming to Layton, whether Rancheritos will occupy that site or build a new building is still to be determined.
Hart said that while the city is disappointed about not getting an In-N-Out Burger now, the city hopes that in the future In-N-Out Burger will revisit the idea of building a new location in Layton.
“The reality too is Layton city is still the premier retail destination in northern Utah,” Hart said. “There is still a lot of major interest from national retailers to be around the Layton Hills Mall area. Even though we didn’t get this one, we will have some very exciting announcements over next couple months.”
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