Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers

"Raising Cane" redirects here. Not to be confused with the idiom or the film.

Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers is an American fast-food 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]

Raising Restaurants, LLC.

Trade name	Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers
Type	Private
Industry	Restaurants
Genre	Fast food
Founded	August 28, 1996; 27 years ago (1996-08-28)^[1]
Founder	Todd Graves
Headquarters	Baton Rouge, Louisiana , U.S.
Number of locations	700+ (2023)^[2]
Area served	United States Bahrain Kuwait Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates
Products	Chicken fingers • French fries • Coleslaw • Cane's Sauce • Texas toast • Soft drinks
Revenue	US$1.5 billion (2020)^[3]
Number of employees	50,000^[4] (2022)
Website	www.raisingcanes.com

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 Slivey 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] Slivey sold his share of the partnership shortly after the second restaurant opened.^[6]

In 2022, Raising Cane's sued a shopping center in Hobart, Indiana, because Cane's had missed discovering, before they'd signed a long-term lease, that the shopping center had a non-compete agreement with McDonald's that prohibited other vendors selling chicken fingers in the complex.^[10][11][12]

International expansion

The chain first began expanding internationally in 2015, opening its first restaurant in Kuwait.^[13] The namesake mascot, a dog, is not seen on signage and merchandise, as dogs are not popular in Kuwait.^[14]

COVID-19 pandemic

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.^[15]

In 2021, in response to a shortage of workers the company began dispatching hundreds^[16] 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.^[17] The company's co-CEO said that corporate employees are trained in the kitchen and on the register under normal circumstances.^[18]

References

1. "Who We Are: One Dream, One Love". Raising Cane's. 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. from the original on April 12, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
3. Kelso, Alicia. . Forbes. Archived from the original on December 29, 2022. Retrieved 2023-02-23.
4. "Raising Cane's drops $100,000 on Mega Millions tickets — again". Washington Post. July 29, 2022. from the original on July 30, 2022. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
5. Kern, Sydney (20 March 2018). "Big paws to fill: training begins for Raising Cane III". WBRZ. from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
6. Sayre, Alan (June 12, 2007). "Finger joint beat the odds on fish turf". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. p. D3. 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. from the original on May 5, 2021. Retrieved September 13, 2019.
8. . Raising Cane's. Archived from the original on December 9, 2021. Retrieved September 13, 2019.
9. "About Our Founder". Raising Cane's. from the original on July 1, 2022. Retrieved June 20, 2022.
10. "Raising Cane's raises Cain over a lease that bans chicken fingers". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. from the original on 2022-11-10. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
11. "Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers sues Indiana shopping center after being told it can't sell chicken fingers". Fox 59. 2022-11-09. from the original on 2022-12-09. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
12. "Raising Cane's sues shopping center over chicken finger ban". NewsNation. 2022-11-10. from the original on 2022-12-09. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
13. Blake, David (February 9, 2018). "Raising Cane's goes international". WWL News. from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
14. Yoder, Kaci (2015-11-11). "First overseas Raising Cane's adapts to the Middle East". 225 Magazine. from the original on 2021-10-29. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
15. Chung, Heidi (April 30, 2020). "Raising Cane's CEO: We're not going to hurry back and reopen stores". Yahoo! Finance. from the original on January 28, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
16. "Raising Cane's sending corporate staff to work in restaurants amid labor shortage". The Hill. 7 October 2021. from the original on 31 October 2021. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
17. "Facing employee shortage, Raising Cane's putting corporate staff to work as fry cooks, cashiers". ABC7. 6 October 2021. from the original on 26 October 2021. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
18. "Raising Cane's puts corporate staff to work as fry cooks, cashiers amid staffing shortage". TODAY.com. from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2022-01-31.