Economics of scale.

I'm in nyc and 25 is not the norm for a regular burger

I'm about an hour out from the nearest city, in a suburban area. I'm closer to the boonies than anything like New York City or Chicago.

I'm a fairly hostile atheist, but I can respect how they've handled this. They wanted to support their position, but didn't want it to be in everyone's face, so they did it discreetly, out of respect for their non-religious customers.

That's the kind of reasonable compromise required of the 1st Amendment, so when I see that, I have to respect it, even if I don't agree with it. They have their right to their religious beliefs, as I do to reject them. I'm not going skip their excellent and reasonably priced food over a few religious verses.

If they start financially supporting preachers who promote the execution of gays, and convince African countries to make it the law or some other such bullshit, like Chikfila or Hobby Lobby does, then I'll reassess.

Man, they sure are religious for a food chain named after a sexual act.

I think their consistency has gone down. If you get a top tier In-N-Out burger, where the cheese has just started to melt and the bun was toasted just right, they're pretty damn good burgers, would still be worth it if it cost an extra $2-3. The mid to low tier In-N-Out burgers are about worth their current price.

I mean, they're well known for being a Christian company. It's not particularly surprising.

In a perfect world, I'd go to the left-wing-donating equivalent, but until they show up or In-N-Out stops being an otherwise commendable company (charity work for addiction centers and trafficked children, much higher wages than competitors, (mostly) clean and well maintained establishments), they're on the docket to get my $9.98 when I don't have the time or energy to make dinner.

try chickpea flour or similar

Could just be commercial rent. Most people don't really understand that commercial rents are obscenely predatory. A place doing money laundering isn't going to go through the effort of producing a "Good, but not good enough for the price" burger.

Source: former restaurateur, current fintech AML involved

Most places around here are in the $10-20 range for a lunch, particularly causal places like a burger joint. I can even get a giant sushi bowl for like 15 near my office. Tacos, chicken, thai, indian...

There is even an awesome healthy food place called Brassica (highly recommend if there is one near you) that I can get a massive sandwich at for under $10 without meat, $12 with chicken, up to $14 with slow cooked brisket. And it is filled to the brim with awesome tasting yet still healthy stuff made in house (housemade wood fired pita bread, mixed greens with a lemon dressing, hummus/baba ganouche, pickled veggies, roasted veggies, garlic/pepper/herb sauces, feta, etc). And even if I get a big helping of Brisket, it comes in under half the price of that burger and fries. There is no excuse for ground beef, a slice of cheese, some condiments and raw veggies on bun to be more than double that price. These places are 4 minutes from each other.

I had the same experience, haven't gone there in years because why would I pay more than double for the same quality of food as their competitors?

I'm at 18.26 for a double bacon cheese, small Cajun and regular drink.

That's a lot of food as well. Like a meal and a later snack to finish it off.

Coupons are great, last time I went I got 2x little cheese and fries for like 10 bucks.