Raising Cane’s Grew From an Idea a College Professor Hated
No one believed in Todd Graves’ vision for a restaurant at first. Today, Raising Cane’s is the third-largest chicken chain in the US by sales and growing fast.
Todd Graves, CEO of Raising Cane’s, at the drive-thru window of the original restaurant in Baton Rouge.
Photographer: Annie Flanagan for Bloomberg Businessweek
Long before Raising Cane’s became one of the fastest-growing restaurant chains in the US, company founder Todd Graves pitched the idea of a fast-food spot centered around a single item—the mighty chicken finger—in an undergraduate business course at the University of Georgia. The professor gave him the lowest grade in the class. “‘The plan’s great,’” Graves recalls the professor saying. “‘But the concept?’ He said, ‘You really didn’t do your homework.’”
In all fairness to the professor, this was the early 1990s, when all the big fast-food chains were expanding their menus to include healthier items like green salads and grilled chicken to temper their more decadent fare. (In 1991, Kentucky Fried Chicken even shortened its name to KFC because of the growing stigma around fried foods.)