In-N-Out Burger

by Stacy Perman

  Guy wasn’t sold on the idea at first. He was said to be uncertain about Taylor’s skills. While he eventually signed on, he did so with some reservations. As Taylor stepped up to corporate management, it wasn’t long before Guy began joking, “He wants my job.”

  Despite his numerous efforts to stay clean, Guy’s troubles soon re-surfaced. It was a topic that the Snyder family and In-N-Out Burger preferred not be examined publicly. Friends insisted that Guy’s problems with drugs stemmed from the painkillers he continued to use in the constant search for relief from his back and arm injuries. After a while, however, the painkillers had been supplemented with a cornucopia of other substances.

  By the mid-1990s, the impact of Guy’s problems had become difficult to ignore. Guy had good periods and bad periods. He would get to a point where he could barely function and then enter rehab, but his numerous stays did little to curb his addictions. “The way he looked at rehab,” explained one of his friends, was “do those thirty days and get out. The whole time he was in there he was craving drugs, and when he’d get out, he couldn’t wait to start all over again.” At one point, Guy was refused admittance to the Betty Ford Center because he was too high to talk to the admitting officer. It was a volatile situation that no doubt contributed to what close observers described as a turbulent marriage. Guy was often absent, racing, in rehab, or attending to some other interest of his, and the couple were said to argue frequently. In August 1995, Guy and Lynda Snyder legally separated. Their estrangement lasted two years.

  Barely four months after the couple’s formal separation, police officers in Claremont, thirty miles east of Los Angeles, found Guy Snyder’s parked 1968 Dodge Charger. It was around 3:30 a.m. on Christmas Day. When the officers peered into the car, they found Guy hunched over and passed out; his face was buried in a briefcase containing a small pharmacy of drugs, including marijuana, Valium, the sedative Klonopin, and the painkiller codeine. In addition, Guy was carrying a loaded 9 mm Glock semiautomatic handgun, an 8-inch switchblade, and $27,475 in cash. He was arrested and charged with several misdemeanors including public intoxication, possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, carrying a loaded firearm, and possession of a switchblade. Released on his own recognizance, six months later Guy pleaded “no contest” to the weapons charges at the Municipal Courthouse of Pomona. Los Angeles County prosecutors dismissed the drug charges and in turn Snyder paid a fine of $810. As part of his probation, Guy agreed not to own, use, or possess any dangerous or deadly weapons.

  The incident did not go over too well back in Baldwin Park. For obvious reasons, news that the chairman of the beloved and wholesome In-N-Out Burger had been found unconscious by the side of the road and arrested for drug possession was not exactly a public relations windfall. Bracing for the worst, In-N-Out’s executives convened a meeting about how to handle what they expected would be a deluge of media inquiries. However, the incident remained largely out of the press; not even the chain’s local paper, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, ran the story. The inner circle at In-N-Out seemed greatly surprised when the entire episode seemed to pass without comment. In fact, the story of Guy’s arrest did not surface publicly until nearly three years later.

  Guy was a loner surrounded by enablers; they helped to feed his addiction and then cleaned up his messes. His old racing injuries provided a pretext for the drugs. Few if any seemed willing to stand up to Guy and say no. He had a complicated web of relationships wherein his friends and business associates were one and the same, and nearly all were on his payroll in some fashion. They enjoyed his childlike generosity. Swept up in the kind of life that unlimited funds provided, it might have been easier to turn a blind eye than to say no.

  Although clearly troubled and frustrated by her son’s problems, Esther tried to remain hopeful that Guy would soon get well. After the Claremont episode, she was said to have been grateful that he wasn’t injured or killed. But Esther wasn’t a woman known for putting her emotions and feelings on the table. Rather, she held quietly to her faith. Besides, not many were willing to confront Esther and risk upsetting In-N-Out’s kindly grandmother. This was a woman who never uttered an unkind word about anybody, preferring to see only the good in people. When Esther did become distressed about something, she would say “oh, goodness,” get worked up, and then declare, “I hope the Lord forgives me—I’ve got my anger up.” That was usually the extent of it.

  But Guy’s drug problem was something that not even Esther could completely ignore. When Guy was in pain, Esther seemed to understand his need for painkillers. Her strategy was to think positive and hope for the best, but his downward spiral was difficult to comprehend. She often called his entourage to make sure that he was okay. More than anything, her approach smacked of unhealthy indulgence. This sweet old lady who knew the cost of a truckload of potatoes seemed determinedly unaware of the price of her son’s drug habit.

  During Guy’s worst periods, he was increasingly absent from In-N-Out Burger. Lynda’s nephew Tom Wright had become Guy’s right hand man. Among those in the burger chief’s retinue, Wright seemed to genuinely care about Guy as a friend. In addition to his responsibilities in asset protection, he had also been named to In-N-Out’s board of directors. Wright often ended up acting as a go-between, telegraphing Guy’s intentions to the vice presidents during the chairman’s absences at corporate meetings. For years, Rick Plate had served a similar function, both supporting and propping up Guy. In 1994, Plate collapsed at In-N-Out’s Irvine offices; he had suffered a brain aneurysm, and never regained consciousness.

  Guy’s absences didn’t necessarily interrupt the day-to-day operations. When he was unavailable, the chain’s executives usually met and worked out decisions as a group. After Guy returned, he could be prickly and at times paranoid toward the other In-N-Out Burger executives during meetings. Sometimes he seemed to think that some of the managers were acting to supersede him, and he countered by putting them in their place during a meeting. Regardless, it was due in no small part to the talented and loyal executive team that In-N-Out Burger remained on a stable and successful course. It was Guy Snyder’s life that was turning volatile, falling into an unpredictable pattern of good days and bad days, bright spots and periods of darkness.

  It was during one of Guy’s better stretches in 1995, while separated from Lynda, that he reconnected with Kathy Touché (née Nissen). Kathy was the girl whom he had had a crush on when he was in high school and she was just thirteen. A divorced mother of three, the petite blonde was working at her father’s restaurant, Norm’s Hangar, on the tarmac at Brackett Field in La Verne. A local institution, Norm’s was known as a great spot to watch planes take off and climb up over the San Gabriel Mountains and for its all-day breakfasts and chatty waitresses. Although many years had passed, the two still shared many interests. As it turned out, they had both experienced profound grief as well. About two weeks after Rich Snyder had died, Kathy’s older brother Johnny Nissen was killed while racing his all-terrain vehicle in the California desert.

  The pair began talking on the phone and dating in earnest. According to Kathy, Guy would fly down to Brackett Field and meet her at Norm’s. This time around, Guy seemed to display none of his high school shyness. On their first date, Guy picked Kathy up in a restored 1936 panel delivery truck for a romantic dinner at El Encanto, a rambling estate tucked into the middle of the Angeles National Forest in nearby Azusa Canyon. In her voice, which sounds a lot like a Lucinda Williams song—molasses over gravel, she explained, “We had a lot in common. We liked street racing and concerts, and we had a lot of fun together.” At the time, however, Kathy insisted that she had no idea of the depths of his problem with drugs.

  By the time the couple reconnected, Guy had already begun his long, dark descent. But like many addicts, Guy was also something of a magician. According to Kathy, most of the time Guy went into his office and closed the door. For a surprising period of time, he was able to hide his abuse even as it escalated to othe
r substances—in time he was shooting up heroin. Unlike many addicts, Guy also had the means to infinitely enable his use. Surrounded by an entourage of helpmates and aids, Guy had only to snap his fingers to procure a never-ending supply of drugs.

  According to some, he was surrounded by sycophants and hangers-on; others say that his closest friends were simply at a loss, unable to do much for Guy except pick up the pieces—or baby-sit a grown man bent on self-destruction, a man to whom a great number of them owed their livelihoods. A small cadre saw to it that he went into rehab and escorted him to hospital emergency rehabs following multiple accidental overdoses. But like all addicts, Guy couldn’t hide from the effects of his addiction forever. In January 1996, about a month after his Claremont arrest, Guy had a drug-related heart attack.

  During this time, according to friends, his estranged wife, Lynda Snyder, and her children (now grown) took a tough love approach to Guy. They rarely saw him. He was said to be deeply hurt by the rupture; he had helped raise Lynda’s daughters, Traci and Terri, and loved them deeply. But nothing seemed to pain him more than the separation from his daughter, Lynsi, who was just starting her teenage years and was living with her mother up in Shingletown. According to intimates, Lynda made a decision to keep Guy away from his daughter because of his drug use. “She was his whole world,” said one person close to the family. Dale Wright recalled that the family simply cut their contact with him. “Lynda didn’t allow Guy to see Lynsi much. She limited her time. He didn’t get to see her very often. I don’t know how often, but he wanted to see her more often than he got to see her.”

  On January 23, 1997, Guy and Lynda Snyder’s divorce became final. She retained the Flying Dutchman ranch that (according to the Orange County Register) was valued at $1.4 million as well as child and spousal support, the paper reported, of $500,000 a year.

  Eight months later, on September 28, Guy married Kathy Touché; he was forty-six and she was forty-two. Just two days before the couple’s wedding, Guy gave her a prenuptial agreement to sign. “I told him we should have one,” she recalled sharply. “But I said that he better not show up with it the week of the wedding. And that’s exactly what he did.” As Kathy described it, In-N-Out’s lawyers drew up a lengthy agreement that would give her very little in the event of a divorce. “I took it to a lawyer in Newport Beach to read,” she said. “He looked up at me and said, ‘Does this guy even like you?’” In the end, she signed it. “I wasn’t after the Snyders’ money, and I thought by signing it I’d be demonstrating my love and loyalty,” she explained. “I had a private conversation with Guy, and I said to him, ‘You said that you would help to take care of me.’ And he knew that I wasn’t going to take him for a ride.”

  Guy and Kathy married in a small ceremony in front of one hundred guests—mostly family and some of the couple’s old high school friends—at a church in Newport Beach. Fifteen-year-old Lynsi did not attend the nuptials. The reception was held aboard The Wild Goose, a 1942 World War II minesweeper that the actor John Wayne had converted into his private 136-foot luxury yacht. The wedding party cruised off of Lido Isle in Newport Harbor. In a photograph taken at their reception, Kathy, who is wearing a simple white shift and pearls, is seen dancing cheek to cheek with Guy, who is pressed tightly against his new wife, a Champagne flute in each of their hands.

  Following the reception, the pair drove off in a classic 1940s Kaiser Steel Willys that Guy had spent five years restoring. He got a one-day road pass from the city to drive the car on the streets of Newport Beach, and the hulking, vintage U.S. military jeep was so loud that it set off all the alarms of the parked cars as they drove away.

  After a Hawaiian honeymoon, Guy, Kathy, and her three children moved into a $1 million house in Claremont. An affluent city at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in the Pomona Valley, Claremont was filled with tree-lined streets, historic buildings, and the group of seven Claremont Colleges. In fact, the city’s outsized proportion of trees and residents with advanced degrees had earned it the moniker as the “the city of trees and PhDs.” The Snyders’ sprawling new house had six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, and a huge yard with a pool, Jacuzzi, and sauna. It was the biggest house that Kathy had ever lived in, and she called it “overwhelming.” Actually, she said later, “It was too big. It didn’t feel like a home.”

  During this time, Guy seemed to function well. He was engaged with the business of In-N-Out. One of his goals was to buy back as many of the leased stores as possible. In fact, he converted a section of the Claremont house into an office. When he went to the company’s headquarters, Guy commuted by Lear Jet. Often he flew back into Brackett Field and met Kathy, who was still working at Norm’s Hangar (which she eventually took over from her father). It wasn’t uncommon for Guy to arrive, put on Kathy’s apron, and help clean up. “People would’ve died if they knew the CEO of In-N-Out was bussing tables,” she laughed at the memory. “He loved nothing more than to eat a patty melt on the patio and bus tables.” At one point, Kathy said, he made an offer to buy Norm’s—but she refused. “I said no. You leave my family business alone and I’ll leave you yours.”

  With Lynsi up in Shingletown and Guy in only sporadic contact with his daughter, he focused on life with his new family. Guy bought a junior dragster for Kathy’s thirteen-year-old son, Aaron, and flew the boy and Guy’s In-N-Out racing team to a track in Phoenix. “That was really neat because their father wasn’t too involved in their lives at the time,” she recalled. And Guy took his new father-in-law and brother-in-law on Alaskan fishing trips. “They had a ball. He really admired my father,” she said. “He was just a big kid. He liked to drive tractors and get stuck in the mud. He’d spend all day getting stuck in the mud. Sometimes I think he’d do that just so he could get pulled out.” The family took frequent trips to the cattle ranch in Arroyo Grande. (It was something of a consolation prize, since he had lost the Flying Dutchman in his divorce settlement with Lynda.)

  Accompanied by his new wife, Guy Snyder traveled overseas with the managers (and their spouses) who were rewarded each year as part of In-N-Out Burger’s 100 Percent Club. Europe—Amsterdam in particular—was a favorite destination. Harry Snyder’s family was originally from Holland. In addition to the family connection, Guy was fascinated by the city’s cafés, where one could buy marijuana.

  One 100 Percent Club trip to Amsterdam was particularly memorable for Guy. Guy and Kathy flew the Concorde to Europe, stopping in New York en route where they stayed at the storied Plaza Hotel’s two-level, seven-room presidential suite overlooking Central Park. After New York, the couple flew to London for three days before arriving in Amsterdam for a four-day trip. On the itinerary was a performance of The Phantom of the Opera in New York, dinner at a sixteenth-century castle in London, and trips to the tulip farms of Holland.

  Prior to this particular trip, Guy had hired a genealogist and a private detective to track down his father’s relatives in Amsterdam. Once there, they met for the first time, and the reunited families took a boat cruise and had lunch together. It was during this visit that Guy looked into buying a Sherman tank and a vintage windmill to be sent back home. Once Guy discovered that shipping charges would run in excess of $1 million, however, he changed his mind.

  Now that Guy was chairman of In-N-Out, he no longer had his brother looking over his shoulder. One of the first things that he did after Rich died was to step up In-N-Out’s involvement in racing. He purchased a suite at the Pomona Fairgrounds, where the Winternationals were held, and liberally passed out tickets to friends and In-N-Out associates.

  In 1996, Guy approached Jerry Darien, whom Guy had known since he was kid running elapsed time slips at the Irwindale Raceway in the 1960s. A former teacher, Darien had worked as an announcer at the Dale when Harry Snyder was part owner in the track. The two met at a Mexican restaurant in Pomona. In addition to the Funny Car, Guy was interested in putting an Alcohol Car team together, and he wanted Darien to head up the effort. Guy agreed to sponsor a
team. “There was a handshake,” recalled Darien, who hadn’t lost his sonorous announcer’s voice in the intervening years, “and away we went.” The team won its first race in Boise, Idaho, a divisional contest, in April 1997. Six months later, at the end of the season, Guy decided to end In-N-Out’s association with the Over the Hill Gang.

  Two years later, Guy called Darien again and asked him if he could put a Top Fuel team together. Darien was given three months to assemble a car and enlist a driver. Guy agreed to pay somewhere between $1 million and $2 million for the sponsorship, to be distributed on a quarterly basis. Darien tapped twenty-six-year-old Melanie Troxel, who earlier raced the Alcohol Car, to drive the Top Fuel car. She was one of the NHRA’s fastest female dragsters (and the daughter of the 1988 NHRA Alcohol Dragster champion Mike Troxel). The team’s first race was to be at the Winternationals in Pomona, in February 2000.

  CHAPTER 20

  Guy’s time at the top was short-lived. His troubles soon escalated, taking away from his ability to function—let alone fulfill his duties as the company’s chairman. Simply put, the years of abuse had caught up with him. Guy rarely checked on the warehouse or meat departments anymore. He was spending less and less time at the company, and meetings that would once have been postponed to accommodate his absences now went on without him. The professional management team that Rich had put in place, those men whom Esther referred to as “my boys,” implemented the company’s agenda with her guidance. In the final years of the 1990s, anyone could see that Guy was in bad shape.