DENVER — Wildly popular and cult favorite California fast-food chain In-N-Out Burger will at long last be coming to Colorado, it was announced Thursday.

Westside Investment Partners is under contract to purchase land at the Victory Ridge mixed-use development in north Colorado Springs for the restaurant.

It will be the first time the chain known for its animal style burgers, fries and shakes — and long lines — will open a restaurant in Colorado.

The first Colorado restaurant will be at the corner of Interquest Parkway and Voyager Parkway. There is no timeline for the opening date of the first restaurant.

In-N-Out will build a distribution facility and office building on a 22.4-acre parcel for future growth along the Interstate 25 corridor. No other restaurant sites have been determined.

“Colorado Springs is an ideal community for us to locate facilities to serve surrounding markets with fresh ingredients, including meat patties produced locally,” In-N-Out vice president of development Carl Arena said in a statement.

“We are extremely fortunate to have a number of loyal customers in Colorado and they have been encouraging us to open locations there for some time.”

The distribution center could serve up to 50 restaurants within 350 miles of Colorado Springs. It could take more than a year for the first restaurant to open.

“We have been in discussions with a number of parties regarding an anchor tenant that can further our belief that Victory Ridge is the premier mixed-use development in the north Colorado Springs market,” said Andrew Klein, a principal with Westside.

“The prospect of In-N-Out coming to the site confirms that belief, and we cannot be more excited to welcome this user to our project.”

Victory Ridge is a mixed-use development one-half mile east of the Interstate 25 and Interquest Parkway interchange.

It will include more than 500 residences and up to 1.6 million square feet of commercial development. It is about 45 minutes south of Denver and 15 minutes north of Colorado Springs.

In-N-Out started in Baldwin Park, California, in 1948 and has a cult-type following. It has more than 325 restaurants in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Texas and Oregon.

It’s menu consists of a hamburger, cheeseburger, Double-Double (two patties with two slices of cheese), french fries, drinks, shakes, milk and coffee.

A reason for a long-awaited expansion into Colorado is because In-N-Out did not have a distribution center nearby.

In-N-Out delivers food fresh daily to its restaurants instead of freezing it, making its food fresher and more popular. In turn, its legion of fans swarm the restaurants, especially when they open in new markets.

When the first restaurants opened in Texas in 2011, there were long lines of people waiting to get their hands on the burgers.