Is Meridian’s next In-N-Out ... out? What a city board just decided
Meridian residents have made known their displeasure with high-volume drive-thrus on busy, congested roads. The city has even planned to hold a focus group about them.
Residents recently turned up the sound level on their concerns, submitting over 300 pieces of testimony regarding a proposed In-N-Out Burger on Ten Mile Road for a hearing Thursday.
The California burger chain submitted a request for a conditional-use permit to operate a drive-thru restaurant at 5985 and 6037 N. Ten Mile Road, south of Chinden Boulevard. The proposed restaurant would be the chain’s fourth In-N-Out in the Treasure Valley, which opened its first Idaho restaurant at The Village at Meridian in 2023 and has since started flipping burgers in Boise and Nampa.
Nearby residents have taken issue with what they fear would be additional congestion and noisy late-nights. At a public hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission, city planners did, too. The Planning and Zoning Commission eventually voted 4-1 to deny the proposal.
Planning staff recommended denial of the permit for the drive-thru, which would sit within 300 feet of another drive-thru to its north and the Bainbridge subdivision to its west on Lost Rapids Drive.
Though In-N-Out provided a traffic mitigation study showing that traffic on Ten Mile and Lost Rapids would remain at “acceptable” levels of service, a city staff report cited concerns that queued cars could “obstruct” drive aisles and public right-of-ways and “adversely affect other properties in the vicinity.”
“Staff finds the site is not large enough to accommodate the proposed use and comply with ... standards” regarding car stacking, the report said.
Bill Parsons, planning supervisor, noted at the hearing that the proposed drive-thru’s proximity to two major corridors, Ten Mile and Chinden, a Costco Wholesale, and about six or seven other drive-thrus on the same site amplified concerns over congestion in an already “heavily trafficked” area.
Late-night deliveries plus long hours of operation would also mean that “when you add all that up, it’s basically a 24-hour site,” Parsons said.
In-N-Out’s permit application included a request for extended business hours beyond the 11 p.m. limit, with hours from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and 6 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Todd Smith, In-N-Out’s development manager said that these hours would be consistent across all locations, including the three restaurants already operating in the Valley.
In-N-Out ‘unpopular’ with neighbors
Gripes with traffic, late hours and impacts to neighbors were ubiquitous in the 327 public comments submitted to the city, as well as statements made by residents at the hearing. Most residents opposed the proposed drive-thru. The Planning and Zoning Commission’s rejection was reported earlier by Idaho News 6.
Among those opposed were 80% of the Bainbridge homeowners association’s 573-member group, the Idaho Statesman previously reported.
Brick Oliver, representing the homeowners association for the Cadence at Bainbridge, the development’s 55 and over community, said Thursday that 98% of respondents to the association’s survey opposed the In-N-Out.
Oliver said that the responses reinforced what she had already gathered informally from conversations with residents in Cadence’s 165 homes: “That this was a very bad and unpopular proposal.”
Oliver said survey respondents described the plan as a “traffic nightmare” and voiced fears around the safety of pedestrians, especially children.
Traffic ‘acceptable’ but worsening on Ten Mile
Smith said at the hearing that the proposed In-N-Out would have room to stack 29 vehicles plus an escape lane and that the Ten Mile site is larger than the others in the Treasure Valley, allowing for more traffic to be contained to the site.
Smith said that as additional restaurants have opened, traffic has begun to level off among the sites.
Both the In-N-Out traffic study and comments from the Ada County Highway District suggest no traffic mitigation measures are needed. In-N-Out’s study said the drive-thru would generate roughly 2,500 trips on weekdays. It said the intersection of Ten Mile and Lost Rapids is now at level of service E or better and that it would remain as such. The same goes for the level of service on Ten Mile, and Lost Rapids would remain at D or better, the study said.
ACHD said no road improvements were necessary either, which Parsons said had to do with the fact that a number of improvements were required at the time the Costco was built, including widening Ten Mile from Chinden Boulevard to McMillan Road.
But as Meridian continues to grow and development has boomed in the area surrounding the Ten Mile Interchange since it opened in 2011, frustrations with traffic on Ten Mile and Chinden are hard to deny.
Meridian officials hope that a long-awaited Interstate 84 overpass on Linder Road may alleviate traffic on Ten Mile, and the Idaho 16 extension is expected to help with north-south traffic in the area as well, once it opens sometime in 2027. But for now, there’s nothing slated for Ten Mile on ACHD’s integrated five-year work plan.
This story was originally published April 19, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
