There are extensive rumors that Trader Joe's is coming, especially starting in Ft Worth and then Dallas.
Yes, a few Carl's outside of the City. Dallas is covered with Sonic locations. Seem to be more of them and Subway than McDonald's.
There was a really interesting case of In N Out having a Texas stalker/impersonator. It's the first corporate case of this kind I can remember. We're not talking counterfeit DVDs.
http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2002/03/25/story6.html
" Hooked on the tasty burgers, James Van Blaricum said he just wanted to own a piece of the In-N-Out Burgers fast-food chain, highly popular on the West Coast.
But documents filed in ensuing court cases in California and Texas allege the Dallas investor's passion for burgers strayed into espionage and theft after the family owned chain in Irvine, Calif., rejected his offer to invest in or open a franchise.
In a lawsuit filed in Dallas County District Court Jan. 22, In-N-Out says Van Blaricum set in motion an "elaborate industrial espionage scheme." In an earlier federal suit in California, a former company executive of Van Blaricum's enterprise said the investor used an array of high-tech tools to "replicate In-N-Out in virtually every respect."
Van Blaricum could not be reached for comment. Attorneys on both sides have declined to discuss the cases.
Van Blaricum had high aspirations, looking to open 1,000 fast-food burger joints in 10 years and take his company public in half that time, said Jason Newling, Van Blaricum's former vice president of operations, in federal court filings Oct. 10. Those dreams crumbled, according to the records, when Newling blew the whistle in the summer of 2001.
At the time the California suit was filed in October, court records show, Van Blaricum's Dallas-based upstart restaurant known as Lightning Burgers had opened its first location at Six Flags Mall in Arlington and had land leases for five more Texas locations.
Van Blaricum and a group of his former employees admitted, among other things, to stealing trade secrets, uniforms, training materials and financial reports from In-N-Out, according to court documents filed by In-N-Out.
Parties to the California suit agreed to a settlement in November that requires Van Blaricum and his associated companies to pay $250,000 to In-N-Out. His seven former employees agreed to pay $250 each.
The settlement also called for Lightning Burgers to cease operations and barred all defendants from working for any burger business associated with Lightning Burgers.
In January, In-N-Out filed a Texas suit against Six Flags Mall L.P., owner of the Arlington mall, for allowing the business to continue. In-N-Out obtained a temporary restraining order preventing the use of the name Lightning Burgers anywhere in the mall.
The business there that now officially operates without a name is known among employees as "the burger place." At one point, the restaurant had an overhead menu advertising such items as the "Thunder Burger" and "Lightning Fries."
Mall spokesman Tom Morris said the mall terminated Van Blaricum's lease and has reached a confidential settlement with In-N-Out. The mall is now the owner of the burger business, Morris said.
"Six Flags Mall is more or less on the side of In-N-Out, and Six Flags believes In-N-Out is on the side of Six Flags," Morris said. He added the unnamed restaurant "is in the process of being sold to a national chain."
Newling said in the court papers he raised concerns about "blatantly copying In-N-Out" when Van Blaricum first approached him in the fall of 1999. Newling, who worked for Van Blaricum between August 1999 and June 2001, said he and Van Blaricum were associates in previous business ventures.
Newling said he later decided "what we were doing was wrong, and I decided I could no longer be involved in this theft of In-N-Out's confidential and proprietary information."
Newling also said Van Blaricum was "obsessed with copying In-N-Out down to the last detail."
To copy the burger's famous taste, Newling said he placed samples of In-N-Out's meat, cheese, buns and spread in "kyro-vac" containers that lowered the temperature and sucked out the air. The food samples were then sent to testing facilities for analysis.
"We found vendors who were willing to provide us with meat, cheese, buns and spread to replicate the samples," Newling said.
While working at an In-N-Out Burger store in Nevada, Newling said in court documents he would sneak inside between 2 and 4 a.m. to record the dimensions of the store. Using a digital camera, Newling shot "hundreds" of photographs of the store's equipment and e-mailed them to Van Blaricum in Dallas, according to court documents."
