In-N-Out Secrets Deleted After Reddit Q&A

Reddit's popular "Ask Me Anything" forums are popular enough to attract even President Obama, but apparently they're not good enough for In-N-Out.  

Last week, a cook for the popular Southern California-based chain took to the message board to answer some of the chain's fans' burning questions. They didn't get too crazy; here's a sampling of what the employee, who identified as "dravila9," was asked:

"Is it true that as an employee you get better then minimum wage and benefits? I've heard In&Out does well by its employees."
"What's one thing you don't serve that you wish you did?"
"Are the potatoes peeled every day?"
"If you could use any of the ingredients in the kitchen, what would you make and what would you call it?"
"Best thing on the menu?"
"Do you have a 'secret menu'? If so, what is your favorite item on it?"

More questions centered on why the chain's expansion is so slow (something owner Lynsi Torres addressed a couple weeks ago), job satisfaction, and the urge to spit in customers' food. And while according to The Huffington Post he mentioned creating some truly delicious sounding mashups after-hours with outside ingredients (bacon burger and animal fries topped with torn-up burger patties and bacon, smothered in Famous Dave's BBQ sauce anyone?), nothing he said made the company look bad in any way. Still, several days after being posted, all of the employee's comments and every trace of his identity were scrubbed clean from reddit's site.

We're reached out to both In-N-Out and Reddit for comment, and will update if we hear from them.

UPDATE: We heard back from Carl Van Fleet, In-N-Out Burger's vice president of planning and development, who had this to say: "By the time we learned about the postings on Reddit, they had already been removed along with the username.  It is our understanding that comments/postings/etc. on that site can only be removed by the originator."

UPDATE 2: Just heard from a Reddit rep, who had this to add: "The User did that on their own. Can't speak for what (if anything) motivated their decision, but we did not remove it and received no communications from In-N-Out."

Dan Myers is the Eat/Dine Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow him on Twitter @sirmyers.