Chain Leader

Lane Cardwell

Giving Them the Finger
April 22, 2008

Chicken finger. And they are really good ones. Raising Cane's is all about One Love; the love of fresh chicken fingers. They are so good that they don't need to be called chicken tenders to have people try them. Reading about healthy food didn't seem to do much for you. That's okay. That leaves me about 99.9% of the rest of the industry to write about. This concept is growing like a weed. Todd Graves, the founder, started Raising Cane's in 1996 and it is now in 13 states with 67 units.

Todd has a great story about starting the concept. It is typical of many other restaurant founder stories; no money and no one willing to loan or invest in the idea. Undeterred, Todd spent a few years after graduating from Louisiana State University raising money by working in the California oil refineries, and on Alaskan sockeye salmon fishing boats. He then took the money he raised and used it to start the concept. As is typical, when others saw that he was investing a substantial sum of his own money, they invested along with him. Dave Thomas named Wendy's after his daughter; Todd Graves named Raising Cane's after his dog.

Raising Cane's serves one entree (chicken fingers) and three other food items (fries, coleslaw, and Texas toast). That's it. Well, there is also a really good sauce for the fingers. It is the In-N-Out Burger of chicken fingers. The menu focuses on doing one thing, and doing it extremely well. They use fresh, never frozen, premium chicken tenderloins, marinate them for at least 24 hours, then batter, flour and season them by hand. They are then cooked to order and never held.

There is a Raising Cane's down the street from where I live in Richardson, Texas. It used to be a service station. It might be the last corner in the country that became a restaurant instead of a bank or drugstore. I have watched the restaurant drop into the community without there being any awareness of the concept. Over the past two years, the Raising Cane's has carved out a strong niche among customers in the area. It offers what many other competitor QSR restaurants offer, a chicken finger entree. The difference is that Raising Cane's excels at it.

I love concepts that take a popular product that can be found on many other menus, and then elevate it. In-N-Out Burger. Five Guys Burgers. Not many chains have the guts to bet their future on one product. Raising Cane's proudly gives its customers one excellent finger.

Posted by Lane Cardwell on April 22, 2008 | Comments (7)