After successfully conquering the chicken finger market in Baton Rouge, Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers is starting to venture out of the henhouse with aspirations of becoming a global restaurant.
According to the Raising Cane’s Web site, the vision of the company is “to have restaurants all over the world and be known as the brand for quality chicken finger meals.”
To achieve this vision, Cane’s is building more company-owned restaurants in Louisiana and Mississippi and franchising out into the world market.
The restaurant currently has 16 locations in Louisiana, spanning from Lake Charles to Slidell, and employs over 550 people.
The first out-of-state location will open in Jackson, Miss., in March and will be followed by the first franchises in Columbus, Ohio, and Fort Collins, Co.
The great size of the world market may dissuade some people from having global ambitions, but not Raising Cane’s founder and CEO Todd Graves.
“Chicken is a worldwide staple,” Graves said in an e-mail. “KFC has over 11,000 locations and half are out of the U.S. in countries all over the world. We feel Raising Cane’s product is of the highest quality, and we are fanatical about our operations and culture.”
The Web site said Cane’s is very selective in choosing its franchising partners because of the challenging vision of the company.
A person must meet various requirements to be selected as a franchise partner, including having a net worth of $150,000, $30,000 in liquid assets and two years of service in a restaurant leadership position.
Cane’s also offers a Pillar Program, which allows individuals interested in operating a Cane’s franchise to work within the company to learn the operations, skills and culture needed to open a new location.
Crew-members who make it through the Pillar Program will have the opportunity to franchise a Cane’s restaurant.
The cost of opening a new restaurant is not cheap.
According to Cane’s estimates, which are based on previous costs, a new restaurant can cost from $482,000 to more than $2 million.
In addition to the cost, a franchise must meet strict location guidelines, including being located near a university.
“When entering a new market, we definitely like to be near universities,” Graves said. “College students make great customers and great crew members. In growing to new markets, we would like to open our first locations near a campus and have college crew-members staff the store to build that Cane’s culture quickly.”
Graves also said that each location will be themed after the community where it is located, and support what customers and crew in the area are into.
When the first Cane’s location opened in August 1996 by the north gates of LSU, it was an immediate success with University students.
Before Graves had any money raised or investors lined up for the first restaurant, a business professor at LSU had given the original business plan a “C” because he thought the chicken-only concept would not “fly.”
Ironically, the professor is no longer teaching at the University.
Graves and his original business partner, Craig Silvey, currently speak to students in entrepreneurship classes at the University about franchising.
Graves’ quest to open the first Cane’s was a hard and dangerous journey.
According to the company’s Web site, to raise money for the first restaurant, Graves worked as a boilermaker in California and as a fisherman in Alaska.
“Fishing in Alaska was the hardest work I could ever imagine,” Graves said. “We worked 20 hours a day only catching an hour nap here and there. Our captain was very aggressive and would ram competing boats.”
With the success of his dream, Graves hopefully will never have to perform that kind of work again.
And as for what is in the Cane’s sauce, he will never, ever tell.