Cult favorite to open its first Santa Rosa location in October

In-N-Out Burger has started taking employment applications in Santa Rosa, even as construction workers continue building its new restaurant across the freeway from Coddingtown.

The company, known for drawing crowds throughout the day for "double-double" burgers and "animal-style" french fries, will hold two days of hiring interviews here in late September. The restaurant at 2131 County Center Drive near Steele Lane tentatively is slated to open sometime the following month.

"The best I can tell you right now is October," said company Vice President Carl Van Fleet. "It's just too early in the construction process to...be much more specific."

The location will be the company's third in Sonoma County. The first opened in Rohnert Park in 1996. A second opened in Petaluma in 2006.

Each restaurant employs about 50 staff, or associates.

Based in Baldwin Park, the family-owned In-N-Out began business in 1948 and has 246 restaurants in California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

Prospective workers can fill out applications online at www.innout.com.

Even those who don't will still be able to talk to an In-N-Out representative during the open interviews Sept. 20 and 21, Van Fleet said. The sessions will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at the Hyatt Vineyard Creek Hotel near Railroad Square.

"Anybody who shows up will get at least a brief interview," Van Fleet said. "We'll have a team of interviewers there both days."

The starting wage for workers is $10 an hour, he said, and staff members "can earn raises pretty quickly from there."

Such wages easily put even the starting In-N-Out employee in the top quarter of fast food workers. The Labor Department reported in May 2009 that the median fast food employee earned $8.52 cents an hour.

"We've always believed in paying our associates well," Van Fleet said. "We know they work hard."

Full-time workers receive medical, dental and vision coverage, plus life and travel insurance.

The average store manager earns nearly $120,000 a year, according to the company web site. Van Fleet said all 246 of the company's restaurant general managers "worked their way up through the system" and have been with In-N-Out an average of 13 years.