The In-N-Out heiress whose grandparents founded the popular hamburger chain said the company’s decision to close its only Oakland location was due to the location being “absolutely dangerous.”
“I mean, there was a lot,” Lynsi Snyder Marissa Streit of the right-wing video network PragerU said this on Monday.
“There was actually gunshots throughout the store, there was a stabbing, there was a lot.”
Snyder, 42, said the company closed the profitable outpost “for the safety of our employees” because “we just felt like, this is not OK.”
Her comments were the first The news site SFGATE reports this.
In-N-Out made the decision to pull out of Oakland last January after an 18-year presence in the city. It served its end customer in March.
It was the first time in its 75-year history that the company permanently closed one of its restaurants.
“Despite repeatedly taking steps to create safer conditions, our customers and employees are regularly victims of auto burglaries, property damage, theft and armed robberies,” Denny Warnick, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, announced in January .
“In addition, this location remains a busy and profitable location for the company, but our top priority must be the safety and well-being of our customers and employees – we cannot ask them to visit or work in an unsafe environment,” he said.
Employees at the closed In-N-Out location were given the option to either transfer to another company-owned fast-food restaurant or accept a severance package.
Months after closing, the building is still vacant. It is listed for $4 million.
According to FBI statistics, violent crime in Oakland is significantly higher than the national average.
The closed In-N-Out was in a busy business corridor that attracts airport travelers and baseball fans attending A’s games at the Coliseum. However, the A’s played their final season in Oakland this year and will eventually move to Las Vegas.
Since 2019, police have logged at least 1,335 incidents near the Oakport Street restaurant — more than any other location in Oakland.
That number includes nine robberies, two commercial burglaries, four domestic violence incidents and 1,174 car burglaries, according to Oakland police data shared with the San Francisco Chronicle.
With Postal Wires
