How In-N-Out Burger might look on the site of the old Village Inn in Tualatin.

In-N-Out Burger is getting closer to opening an its first Portland area outlet next to Bridgeport Village, the tony mall in Tualatin.

The fast food joint with a fervent following just paid $3.3 million for the former Village Inn restaurant at 17070 S.W. 72nd Ave., Jonathan Bach reported Friday in the Portland Business Journal.

The Village Inn restaurant which closed in May 2020 after . Pamplin Media’s The Times reported in July 2020 that the Bridgeport site was just one .

“We are exploring some possible locations in possibly Beaverton, maybe Happy Valley, Hillsboro, Oregon City, perhaps Vancouver, Wash.,” said Cassie Yee at the time, a project manager for In-n-Out Burger “It would be really premature to guess or … assume that if Tualatin or any of our other four Portland-area locations would be the next up to open or the first to open.”

In-N-Out has a restaurant in Keizer, near Salem and another in Southern Oregon, and is spreading north. In-n-Out founder Harry Snyder introduced California’s first drive-thru hamburger stand in the San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, in 1948, and soon added the first two-way speaker box for touchless ordering.

The sale by former Village Inn owner Connie Watt is noted in Washington County records. According to the PBJ, CoStar Group also lists In-N-Out as the owner of the Southwest 72nd Avenue property.