FOUND: The secret source of In-N-Out's Hamburger Buns

A while back I asked if anyone had a recipe to reproduce an In-N-Out type hamburger bun. No one responded; I'd still love to know. However, I have come across a good tip -- the bakery that purportedly makes hamburger buns for In-N-Out. No, I have not tried it yet. But here are the details:

Puritan Bakery
1624 East Carson Street
Carson, CA
90745

Telephone [phone]
Fax [phone]

It's really no "secret". The pope just splashes 'em with a little holy water before they go in the oven.

Do they sell to the public, or is it a wholesale-only kind of thing?

I think they sell retail.

A call to them today reveals that they are wholesale only and furthermore that only restaurants buy from them. So basically, you can't buy their buns.

Now, a deeper question: why doesn't any supermarket in the LA area stock their buns? Supermarket hamburger buns stink.

On the subject of supermarket hamburger buns: I find that Northridge (some name like that, with North in it) large-sized onion hamburger buns are really quite good. Now, on hot-dog buns there are some excellent ones around. I highly recommend the long hot-dog buns available at the deli counter at Vicente Foods in Brentwood. (They may have hamburger buns too, I never checked.) The hot dogs there that go with them buns are also just wonderful.

A good question to ask would be how or where do they dispose of their surplus bakery products. All wholesale bakeries do this continually. The ones who don't have their own retail outlet usually sell their surplus through some other outlet.

Puritan has been around for a long, long time as a restaurant and institutional supplier of bread and other bakery products. They used to be located in Santa Monica. I believe they did have a retail outlet then. They supplied Friars Restaurants when I worked there in the early 1960's. Friars also served an excellent hamburger.