Once a year, American fast food giant In-N-Out chooses one city in Australia to set up a pop-up store for a day. This year they chose to do it right here in Canberra at Walt & Burley in Kingston today, Wednesday 28 February.
In-N-Out is beloved in the States and the hype and expectation about the temporary set-up in Canberra was high, so CD went along to check out if burgers matched the hype.
The pop-up opened at 9am, so we arrived at around 9.20am thinking we may be able to beat the rush as not many would be keen for a morning burger. Wrong!
The line was already long and it ended up taking almost an hour and a half before we had our burgers. By the time we left at 10.50am, the line was twice the length, meaning some may have had to wait well over two hours in the hot sun for a burger. And apparently they were only serving 800 burgers so it’s likely some in the queue would have missed out entirely.
We decided to order the Double Double burger Animal Style, along with ‘potato chips’ and a coke. The price for the burger was $13, while the ‘chips’ were $2 and the drink $3. All reasonable prices.
The ‘chips’ were just regular plain crisps, not the usual fries one typically enjoys with a burger, or the animal style fries that In-N-Out is famous for, so that was disappointing.
The burger featured two beef patties, two slices of cheese, onions, lettuce and tomato along with a burger sauce. It was a solid burger, no doubt, but was it worth the hype and long wait? Not in our opinion. Some feedback suggested that the quality at the Canberra pop-up didn’t come close to what you find at In-N-Out in the US.
However, it was a fun little experience and the staff were all great, handing out bottles of water to the waiting crowd, along with key chains and wristbands.
If seeing this made you feel like enjoying a burger, you can find delicious options at many local places around Canberra such as Brodburger, Grease Monkey, Wonderburger and others.
Where is your favourite place to grab a burger around Canberra?
