Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers

Last updated

Raising Restaurants, LLC.
Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers
Company type Private
Industry Restaurants
Genre Fast casual
FoundedAugust 28, 1996;28 years ago (1996-08-28) [1]
Founder Todd Graves
Headquarters,
U.S.
Number of locations
700+ (2023) [2]
Area served
United States
Bahrain
Kuwait
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Products
RevenueIncrease2.svgUS$1.5 billion (2020) [3]
Number of employees
50,000 [4]  (2022)
Website www.raisingcanes.com
Raising Cane's in Woodstock, Georgia Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers Woodstock GA, April 2024.jpg
Raising Cane's in Woodstock, Georgia

Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers is an American fast casual chain specializing in chicken fingers founded in 1996 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by Todd Graves and Craig Silvey. The company is named after Graves' dog, a yellow Labrador. Other yellow Labradors have served as company mascots, as well as certified therapy animals. [5]

Contents

History

Founders Todd Graves and Craig Silvey were studying at different universities when they wrote a plan for a chicken-finger restaurant which Silvey submitted in a business plan-writing course, receiving a C-minus grade. At the time, Graves worked at Guthrie's Chicken Fingers. [6]

The business plan was rejected numerous times by potential investors, so Graves and Silvey earned the needed money working various manual labor jobs. [6] They obtained an SBA loan, which they used to open their first restaurant, located in Baton Rouge at the intersection of Highland Road and State Street near the LSU campus. [7] [8] [9] Silvey sold his share of the partnership shortly after the second restaurant opened. [6]

In March 2020, many of Cane's locations switched from dine-in to pick-up and take-out service only because of the COVID-19 pandemic, while others closed temporarily. As of July 2020, certain locations had reopened their dining rooms, although Graves said the company was in no rush to do so on the full scale. [10]

In 2021, in response to a shortage of workers, the company began dispatching hundreds [11] of corporate employees to work in its restaurants as cooks and cashiers, in addition to their existing duties regarding the hiring of new employees. The company planned to hire 10,000 new employees. [12] The company's co-CEO said that corporate employees are trained in the kitchen and on the register under normal circumstances. [13]

In 2022, Raising Cane's sued a shopping center in Hobart, Indiana. After the restaurant chain had signed a long-term lease, it came to light that the shopping center had a non-compete agreement with McDonald's which prohibited other vendors selling deboned chicken products in the complex. [14] [15] [16]

In June 2024, Raising Cane's started a campaign based on their Iced Tea, featuring actor and rapper Ice T as the campaign's mascot. The campaign ended at the end of June. [17]

International expansion

The chain first began expanding internationally in 2015, opening its first restaurant in Kuwait. [18] The namesake mascot, a dog, is not seen on signage and merchandise, as dogs are not popular in Kuwait due to religious reasons. [19]

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References

  1. "Who We Are: One Dream, One Love". Raising Cane's. Archived from the original on September 30, 2023. Retrieved October 26, 2023. Opening Day: After finally getting the cash registers to work, Raising Cane's opened on August 28th, 1996.
  2. "Locations". Raising Cane's. July 12, 2023. Archived from the original on April 12, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
  3. Kelso, Alicia. "Raising Cane's Now Offering 'Industry-Leading' Compensation, Including The Chance To Make $1 Million". Forbes . Archived from the original on December 29, 2022. Retrieved February 23, 2023.
  4. "Raising Cane's drops $100,000 on Mega Millions tickets — again". The Washington Post . July 29, 2022. Archived from the original on July 30, 2022. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
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  6. 1 2 3 Sayre, Alan (June 12, 2007). "Finger joint beat the odds on fish turf". Atlanta Journal-Constitution . p. D3. Archived from the original on October 27, 2021. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
  7. Olmstead, Larry (May 30, 2018). "This fast-food chain serves one specialty". USA Today . Archived from the original on May 5, 2021. Retrieved September 13, 2019.
  8. "Our Philosophy". Raising Cane's. Archived from the original on December 9, 2021. Retrieved September 13, 2019.
  9. "About Our Founder". Raising Cane's. Archived from the original on July 1, 2022. Retrieved June 20, 2022.
  10. Chung, Heidi (April 30, 2020). "Raising Cane's CEO: We're not going to hurry back and reopen stores". Yahoo! Finance . Archived from the original on January 28, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
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  13. "Raising Cane's puts corporate staff to work as fry cooks, cashiers amid staffing shortage". TODAY.com. Archived from the original on November 28, 2021. Retrieved January 31, 2022.
  14. "Raising Cane's raises Cain over a lease that bans chicken fingers". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286. Archived from the original on November 10, 2022. Retrieved December 9, 2022.
  15. "Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers sues Indiana shopping center after being told it can't sell chicken fingers". Fox 59. November 9, 2022. Archived from the original on December 9, 2022. Retrieved December 9, 2022.
  16. "Raising Cane's sues shopping center over chicken finger ban". NewsNation. November 10, 2022. Archived from the original on December 9, 2022. Retrieved December 9, 2022.
  17. "Raising Cane's Keeps It Cool This Summer with Ice-T Campaign | Raising Cane's". raisingcanes.com. Retrieved August 8, 2024.
  18. Blake, David (February 9, 2018). "Raising Cane's goes international". WWL News . Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved September 13, 2019.
  19. Yoder, Kaci (November 11, 2015). "First overseas Raising Cane's adapts to the Middle East". 225 Magazine. Archived from the original on October 29, 2021. Retrieved August 23, 2021.