This is not a drill.

Starting Thursday, beloved fast-food chain In-N-Out will bring its burgers, shakes and fries to a town just 45 minutes south of the Portland metro area, the company posted to their official Facebook page.

“We are scheduled to open on Thursday December 12th if all goes according to plan,” the company wrote in a comment.

In-N-Out announced the opening date for their Keizer location via this Facebook comment.

The opening is expected to bring some serious traffic to the area, with customers waiting for up to two hours at Volcanoes Stadium, home to the area minor-league baseball team. They’ll then be ushered to the restaurant’s drive-through.

Harry and Esther Snyder founded In-N-Out Burger in 1948 in Baldwin Park, California, and the company remains under family control. Hallmarks of the chain include its good burgers, friendly service, red-and-white color scheme and Bible verse references (“John 3:16,” etc.) printed on cups and burger wrappers.

In-N-Out first reached Oregon when its Medford location opened in 2015, with a Grants Pass location following two years later. Since then, anticipation has led to news stories debunking potential new locations from Oregon City to Bend. The Keizer restaurant, at 6280 Keizer Station Boulevard, will be the first that’s close enough for a Portland metro area resident to reasonably go for a long lunch.

The opening also means Portlanders will become better versed in some of the most essential arguments of the internet age: Does In-N-Out make the best fast-food burger, and are their fries really that bad?

For me, the answer is yes and yes, particularly in the crispness department, given that In-N-Out doesn’t soak their fries overnight and only fries them once (double frying is the, uh, gold standard in the fast-food world). But they’re not as bad as some would have you believe. Order them “well done” to give the potato sticks a little more crunch or “animal style to turn them into a melted cheese and caramelized onion delivery system.

-- Michael Russell

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