What appeared to be a fresh-cooked burger from famous California burger chain In-N-Out Burger, showed up sitting on a New York City street. The closest In-N-Out location is over 1,500 miles away.
Lincoln Boehm spotted the burger on Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens, New York, at 6:30 a.m on July 20.
“It genuinely shook me to my core,” Boehm told the New York Post.
View this post on InstagramZoomed in photo of another angle specifically for @kfsass Photo cred:@kdara
Boehm and his wife were going to catch a train. They had time before the train arrived, so they decided to head to McDonald’s. That’s when they saw the burger, on a nearly empty street, the New York Post reported.
Boehm told the Post that the burger was “sitting comedically, like perfectly up on the street, completely untouched.” He said it looked like “it had come off the grill five minutes ago.”
Boehm is very familiar with food from In-N-Out Burger. He is a native of California and said he has probably eaten over 1,000 In-N-Out Burgers. He is sure what he saw was authentic, based on the placement and order of the ingredients in the bun.
Boehm and his wife chose not to disturb the burger mystery before them.
“We didn’t touch it,” Boehm told the Post. “We stopped for a second and took photos and looked around to see if anyone else was noticing it and then we walked on.”
He mentioned that he tried to bring In-N-Out burgers to New York in the past after trips to Los Angeles, but it never worked.
“Every time I’ve done it, it becomes inedible,” Boehm said. “The bun gets soggy, and it becomes a mess. This one was just in such perfect condition. It just felt strange, at first I thought it was some sort of viral marketing thing.”
But Boehm remained doubtful about it being a business move.
“If it was a stunt — why on earth would they pick a street in Jamaica, Queens at 6:30 a.m.?”
The closest In-N-Out is 1573 miles away in Dallas, Texas. An APB has gone out to local Dallas police. Stay safe Dallas. https://t.co/Bh7NfgCU2H
— Lincoln Boehm (@lincolnboehm) July 23, 2019
People who saw the burger photo on Instagram had various theories for what could be happening.
“It probably just slipped into our present reality from another timeline. I’m not too conCERNed…” commented mofjmac, via Instagram.
“You should spend the rest of your life solving this. Glitch in the matrix” commented tophersargent.
“Clearly this is a dream,” commented ticklelysz.
Other commenters were seemingly more confident they could explain the burger’s appearance.
“It fell from an Amazon drone delivering it to a very rich New Yorker. Pretty common…” commented josephf.elliott.
“This is not a mystery. My sister does this all of the time with Dick’s in Seattle, driving 4 hours to Oregon where she lives. She immediately puts them in a cooler, and they are preserved so that when she gets home, it looks fresh off of the grill. Microwave a few seconds to reheat. This is not a miracle you’re seeing,” commented toddstrippin.
My buddy Lincoln found a perfectly wrapped In-N-Out burger…
On the streets of Queens, New York!
I AM FREAKING OUT pic.twitter.com/TZbGvLn9N0
— David Gardner (@byDavidGardner) July 20, 2019
One person commented that this is surely intentional and that there are more to follow.
“In all honesty, I know the guy who did it. He works at In-N-Out, and all he did was pack some In-N-Out wrappers and buns into his suitcase during a trip, then bought the meat, cheese, and vegetables and cooked up a few of these and dropped them off at various places. This is the only one someone reported, but he placed quite a few so some more should pop up.”
Boehm said on Twitter that the closest In-N-Out location was in Dallas, Texas.
In-N-Out’s vice president of operations gave his view of the burger discovery.
“Because our burgers are only cooked fresh to order in six states, it must have taken considerable planning for that burger to make the trip from the grill, all the way to the Empire State,” Denny Warnick told the Post.
In-N-Out’s website shows a total of 347 restaurant locations. State’s include California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Texas. The website also shows that four new locations are opening—all are in California.
