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The Insanely Rapid Rise Of Raising Cane's
Oct 29, 2025
If you’re lucky enough to live near one, then you’ve probably heard that Raising Cane’s chicken is so good, it could make the Colonel fly the coop. The upstart chicken finger eatery with a youthful, fun vibe seemingly came out of nowhere to challenge KFC for the cluckin’ throne. But is there really one tender to rule them all?
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Today, we're taking a look at the rapid rise of Raising Canes
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The first Raising Canes opened on August 28, 1996, at 3313 Highland Road in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
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Right from day one, business was booming. Todd Graves himself stood in the street to wave cars into the lot
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and they just kept coming. 18 months later, Graves opened a second location on the other side of the LSU campus
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Two years later, the chain would have five locations in the area and its own central business office
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In 2001, Graves finally decided it was time to expand into new markets, and the company opened locations in places like Texas and Mississippi
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The company was growing fast, and the future looked bright, which is usually when disaster strikes
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That disaster was Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the entire region and, in the process, damaged a staggering 21 of Kane's 28 locations
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That was bad enough, but exacerbating the problem was that Graves, a successful but then inexperienced businessman, had left his company wildly overleveraged
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Long story short, Graves owed a ton of cash, and if 21 of his locations shut down, he had absolutely no way to pay it back
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So he rallied his team to get the affected locations up and running as quickly as possible
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A lot of those communities badly needed food, and the people who lived in them needed places to work, so his employees were only too happy to help
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It saved the business, but Graves would later admit his approach was stupid
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and the whole thing taught him an important lesson in balancing risk That being said Graves near business decision had an upside By 2022 Keynes had over 600 locations and by keeping the
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ownership entirely to himself, he is now one of the 300 richest people in the world. Today
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Raising Keynes has over 800 locations in the U.S. alone, and they're still expanding as fast as
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ever. You'll also find them in Mexico and Canada, and they're also popular in the Middle East
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They opened their first international location in Kuwait in 2015, and by 2024, they had over 40 locations in the region
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However, because dogs aren't generally as popular there as they are in the U.S., you won't see the company's mascot, Raising Cane the Yellow Lab, on any signage or merchandise
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Thanks to a series of high-profile promotions and endorsements, Raising Cane's popularity continues to skyrocket in the U.S. as well
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For example, in 2022, the chain bribed Chevy Chase into reprising his iconic role as Clark Griswold from the vacation films in a commercial that co-starred Graves and recreated the famous sequence where Clark blinds his neighbors with his Christmas lights
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And more recently, in 2024, they celebrated National Iced Tea Day by partnering up with rapper and actor Ice-T on the official Iced Tea of Ice-T
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For a single day, Caniacs could get a free 22-ounce cup of the stuff
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which we're going to assume wasn't stirred with anyone's forearm. Well, maybe iced teas
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As for the Raising Cane menu, it remains as chicken finger-centric as ever
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It has five combo deals, and with the exception of the chicken sandwich, all of them are chicken finger combos
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Burger fans need not apply
#Business Operations
#Fast Food
#Restaurants