Todd Graves

Graves grew up in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia. In the 1990s, in a class at Louisiana State University (LSU), he turned in a business plan for a fast-food restaurant selling only chicken finger meals, detailed down to the cost of aprons, yet received the lowest grade in the class: the professor docked him because the “industry was going in a different direction at the time,” with brands expanding their menus, so that his simplified menu went against the tide.⁠[1][2][3][3][3]

Graves and his partner Craig Silvey took their business plan to every bank in Baton Rouge and were turned down by all of them, because a loan required equity. To raise it, he worked as a boilermaker in California refineries, saving his overtime pay, and then went to Alaska to fish commercially, working 20-hour days in dangerous conditions catching sockeye salmon. He has said he was doing it for his “chicken finger dream.”⁠[4][3][1][3][3][5][3]

Graves returned to Baton Rouge with about $150,000 and, together with a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) loan, converted an old bike shop on Highland Road at LSU’s North Gates into the first restaurant, which opened on August 28, 1996. He originally wanted to name it “Sockeyes’ Chicken Fingers” after the Alaskan sockeye salmon, but after friends rejected the idea he named it after his dog, a yellow Labrador called Raising Cane, which later became the brand’s mascot. The menu offered only four items: chicken fingers, crinkle-cut fries, Texas toast, and coleslaw. The first month’s profit was $30.⁠[4][5][1][6][3][3][2][3][4][3]

The first restaurant became a popular late-night spot, and daytime business grew as well. Eighteen months after opening, Graves opened a second restaurant on the other side of campus; a year later he set up the first support office in an apartment behind the original restaurant; and the following year he and a dozen or so employees opened five restaurants, all conversions, within a single year. Around 2000 the company briefly offered franchises, but since then it has opened only company-owned restaurants, while the few early franchisees continue to operate today.⁠[3][3][3][3][6]

After pausing for a year to develop a restaurant prototype and build its branding, training, and recruiting systems, the company resumed expansion in 2001 and entered new markets; by 2005 it had moved beyond Louisiana into Mississippi and Texas. During the expansion, Graves borrowed from private investors at a 15% interest rate and then took that money to community banks, which treated it as equity, to apply for larger loans.⁠[3][3][3][7]

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina damaged and shut down 21 of the 28 restaurants in the company’s core region, cutting off cash flow and leaving the highly leveraged company at risk of default. Graves said the company was then in a tight cash position and over-levered, and he rallied the team to reopen as quickly as possible. He later called this way of borrowing “stupid” and said that today he makes sure the company has less than $3 of debt for every $1 of assets.⁠[3][3][7][3][7][7]

In 2008, Raising Cane’s opened a larger support center in Dallas; Graves said the company was growing too fast and it was becoming increasingly hard to attract talent to Louisiana. In 2009, the state of Texas made generous offers to move the company to Plano, which he declined; a large corporate team has since worked in Plano, while the company headquarters remains in Baton Rouge.⁠[3][3][1][1][1]

In 2010, Raising Cane’s updated its vision to open restaurants around the world and become synonymous with quality chicken finger meals. On August 6 of that year, Graves delivered the address at LSU’s 272nd commencement, when the company had more than 90 restaurants in 14 states.⁠[3][8][8][8]

Around 2011, the company’s expansion accelerated markedly, and it opened its 100th restaurant.⁠[3]

In 2014, AJ Kumaran joined the company and later became co-chief executive officer and chief operating officer. In 2015, Raising Cane’s entered the Middle East, later opening restaurants in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Dubai.⁠[3][3][1]

In 2017, the company opened 80 new restaurants in a single year, bringing its total to 360, with annual revenue exceeding $1 billion and 18,000 employees across 32 U.S. states and the Middle East. Garret Graves, the congressman for Louisiana’s 6th District and chairman of Washington Mardi Gras, a longtime friend of Todd Graves, invited Todd Graves to serve as king of Washington Mardi Gras in 2018.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

At the end of 2019, the company had 457 restaurants and annual sales of $1.46 billion. In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic hit the restaurant industry, and Graves said it reminded him of the Hurricane Katrina period; the company opened its 500th restaurant during the pandemic, has since expanded by double-digit percentages each year, and opened flagship restaurants in Times Square in New York, on Broadway in Nashville, and on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.⁠[3][3][3][3]

In April 2022, Graves recounted his entrepreneurial journey on the podcast How I Built This. The company then had more than 600 restaurants, he still retained ownership of the company, and sales of $3 billion were projected for that year.⁠[4][4]

In 2023, Raising Cane’s partnered with Graves’ friend, the rapper Snoop Dogg, on its first drive-thru marketing activation. The company’s 2023 sales were $3.76 billion from 727 restaurants, ranking it 28th among restaurant chains by U.S. domestic sales.⁠[3][3][3]

In September 2024, Raising Cane’s held an employee conference of about 3,000 attendees in Cancún, Mexico. Graves said the company’s next aspiration was to become one of the top 10 restaurant brands in the United States, reaching $10 billion in sales, average unit volumes of $8 million, and 1,600 restaurants, and giving back $100 million to communities. In its 28 years, the company had never added an item to its menu. In 2024 the company achieved its first $1 billion quarter, and it expected to finish the year with just over 870 restaurants and $5 billion in sales.⁠[3][3][3][3][3][3][3]

In fall 2024, Graves guest-starred in two episodes of the reality show Shark Tank. In 2024, Raising Cane’s had revenue of $5.1 billion and about 900 restaurants in 42 states.⁠[5][5][5]

On November 9, 2025, David Senra’s eponymous podcast released an episode of his conversation with Graves.⁠[9][9]

In March 2026, Raising Cane’s opened its 1,000th restaurant on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles; the same month it opened a restaurant in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and it planned to open its first European flagship in London’s West End during the year. August 2026 marked the company’s 30th anniversary, and that month it opened seven new restaurants in six states; the company’s target was to open nearly 100 new restaurants in the United States over the full year.⁠[6][6][6][6][6]

Graves expanded mainly by borrowing rather than bringing in outside shareholders, and as of 2024 he held more than 90% of the company’s equity. His creed is “doing one thing, and doing it better than anybody else”; he has refused to add items such as desserts, believing that focus is why the company wins.⁠[7][7][1][3][3]

Raising Cane’s focuses its charitable giving on five areas: schools and education, pet welfare, feeding the hungry, active lifestyles, and support for entrepreneurs, and by early 2018 it had donated a cumulative $25 million to its communities; Graves has personally donated more than $10 million locally in Baton Rouge, including a $1 million gift to Southern University. Graves is also a collector whose holdings include a 66-million-year-old triceratops skeleton, the jacket Harrison Ford wore in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and a pair of Elvis Presley’s sunglasses.⁠[1][1][1][2]