Name: Raising Cane's Founder Todd Graves | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #340
Uploaded: 2021-05-18T13:00:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Raising Cane's Founder Todd Graves | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #340' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-05-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Raising Cane's Founder Todd Graves | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #340' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-05-18. Transcript available.

Raising Cane's Founder Todd Graves | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #340

Today's guest is a business entrepreneur in the food realm and he started his
deal right in Baton
Rouge his first outlet his first food locale right there in Baton Rouge
Louisiana where I was
attending school and you know now he's built it into a billion dollar industry
I'm grateful for
his time today just to learn about what his ride has been like and what he's
learned and
what we can learn from him today's guest is the chicken finger champ from Raising
Canes it is Mr. Todd Graves
Todd Graves how are you man man I'm great I'm even better being up here with
you yeah thanks man
thanks so much for coming in uh I uh so your business now so Raising Canes is
it's a chicken
finger company yeah and how big is the business now now we're pushing 600
locations and almost 25
years of business so it blows me away we're about to start cranking about 100 a
year good locations
man so it blows me away and do you have like a say on what locations are
approved or not or do you
have other people that do that well I have a team a great team that does it
they work with local
brokers but I approve every site everyone yeah um okay so that's where it's at
now so then I want
to go back to like so you grew up in Louisiana right yeah yeah born in New
Orleans raised in Baton
Rouge oh nice where'd you go to high school at yeah Episcopal high school in
Baton Rouge yeah my kids
go there now my wife went there so we're like Episcopal family you're alumni
huh yeah alumni um
yeah I saw your son came out here with you right now yeah yeah he's he has
exams later in the week
and so he had some time off so I like to bring him uh when I'm doing business
and be around be
exposed to it he's just 17 you know but it's good to get that stuff in his head
yeah is he a pretty
decent kid oh great kid man great kid you know plays baseball makes A's you
know just like
it's great his sister's older sister too is at LSU and uh good student too
great they like to have a
good time but they keep it uh they keep it good and that so it's been easy
raising them yeah yeah
yeah um was it did you start being a dad like in the middle of well you must
have started being a
dad in the middle of your company growing yeah yeah you know so Cane's for me
was a college business
plan you know and so I started and opened up like I said almost 25 years ago
that first location
Northgate's LSU yeah I think I went in there man uh I think I went in there
probably I mean I was
probably high honestly or under the influence of something which is okay they
still serve you
well yeah it said that actually you gotta get that chicken man so that's good
late night man even
hung over on Sunday man it's uh that's our bread and butter yeah yeah it was
good man uh yeah so I
guess so then take me through that so like um there's like a lot of rumors out
there yeah you
were a fisherman and you got you were doing fishing and so then what happened
like you're
yeah take me how you kind of started the first one yeah you know it was college
business planning
class so I grew up working in restaurants and bars and high school college and
I was like the kid that
did the lemonade stand in the neighborhood always entrepreneurial right yeah so
I wanted to open my
own restaurant okay but I'm a college student right so I'm like I want to do
something that caters to
the students I wanted to hire students because I knew the work environment they
wanted uh I knew college
kids work hard man they'll bust their ass but they need some somebody that
cares about them let's
listen some fun music you know what's what serve our customers make them feel
good about coming in
and spending their money with us but let's have a good time when we do it so I
was one of the first
restaurants that actually had music going on in the background things like that
but that was my
vision and so for business planning class I had a partner then when I started
and we wrote it for
his business planning class at LSU got the worst grade in the class oh yeah in
there baby
yeah you know but that's fuel right yeah no that's exciting especially so so if
you get
that though do you feel like like were you guys deterred was the business so
you were the partner
at that point yeah so you have a partner I did back then he sold out after the
second one he just
wasn't a he wasn't a fry cook cashier didn't make him happy you know but I love
working drive
throughs I like working fry lines you know it's what I love which is important
I tell these students
now I'm like whatever you go into making sure it's something you like to do you're
passionate
about because if not you won't be successful at it right you love what you do
works comes down to a
grind but if you love it then you're always happy doing it it wasn't the right
business for him
we've stayed dear friends but he sold after the second one but we have those
memories together
because worst grade in business planning class and it's just a b minus it wasn't
a hard grader
yeah but it was the worst grade in the class but for me man it's like okay tell
me tell me I can't do
it let me show you I'm going to okay okay so there you are so you guys get a
little bit of neglect
there from the grading system and then what happens like um well so then where
do you go from there
yeah so I thought you know we needed money to do a spot right and so I took
that business plan
look I thought businessmen you know needed to look the parts so bought a cheap
suit right
oh yeah bought a briefcase from like office depot the one with the little uh
brass locks on it you
know like to look official right I'd go in like a like a little some of the
locks you did never even
open dude I had one once it never you couldn't even get in it they were so
cheap right yeah I had it on
the 000 I crank it up bring it the business plan talk to him about this chicken
finger dream I had
right banks were nice enough but every one of them were like hey man you know
you might want to work
in the industry for 10 years you might want to do this that and the other you're
not in a position
for us to lend you money once again no no no makes you want to do it that much
more but had you had
any experience in that line of work at all I mean yeah I've always worked in
restaurants and did it
and knew it like I knew how much my aprons would cost you know what I mean like
I knew it so well
but people had a problem back then of just a chicken finger only concept right
because quick
service this is what happened to business plan they said you didn't do your
research because
like McDonald's is adding all this variety and all these different things you're
doing the opposite
you want to do just one thing these chicken finger meals and it's not where
your industry is going
but I knew doing one thing and doing better than anybody else would always pay
off okay and was
there that option out there at the time because I remember growing up they had
pie pies and that's
turned more into like a place where people fight I feel like these days it's
more like a boxing
it's almost like a mini UFC over there sometimes but um was there anything that
was serving just
that chicken finger yeah Guthrie's they had started Guthrie's chicken fingers
just started off in
Auburn years but years before and they did uh University of Georgia they did
Florida State and so the
model was out there just wasn't in Louisiana right and so it's hard for them to
see that vision
and for me I just knew college kids like good food and if you can do that
chicken finger meal like
said and our busy biggest business was the late night business to start off
with and it went into the days
so I stayed I stayed true to it I knew I could do it but this to me was like
this is my dream right so I'm
not gonna I'm not gonna shut down I'm not gonna stop I'm never gonna give up so
I got a job through a
friend of a friend working as a boiler maker in refineries right to do turn
around shift work to raise money
okay so boiler maker what is it well so like when they when a refinery needs
one section to be fixed
right put into equipment replace old stuff they'll get a group of boiler makers
to go in and do all that grunt
work okay but they pay you big money because you work long hours during the
week and they want that
section that refinery come back as soon as possible because the weld production
going everything welding
cutting trays out putting in new equipment I mean it's pretty much everything
and you have to learn it on the fly
but it's like they want that thing open as soon as possible to get that oil
production going so you
can make a ton of money if you're willing to work hard okay so you got down
there so you're working
at the oil refinery so how long after you guys have this business plan that you're
able to put it
together and kind of get out to full of two years because after my refinery stint
I needed more money
and I met a guy named Wild Bill Tolard no kidding everybody had nicknames mine
was Hollywood
longer story oh dude we had a guy I remember we used to work at this summer
camp and they had a guy who
would come down and I shouldn't even work in there man I was dating a girl and
she got fired and then
I was like they were like oh you can work here right and so then they had a guy
would come and
take pictures of all the kids swimming and stuff every day and his name was
Wild Bill right so
finally Wild Bill well one day I'm like hey are we ever going to see those
pictures from Wild Bill
and they're like who's Wild Bill I'm like the photographer like we don't have a
photographer
it was just some guy some random dudes I'm Wild Bill and the photographer yeah
taking pictures of kids
swimming which was a little not not ideal so Wild Bills can be interesting they
can be this guy was a little wild
less and uh he he earned his nickname but he said look you don't you don't mind
working hard and you're
trying to raise money for this chicken finger dream these bullet makers were
incredibly encouraging to
me man like man you're going to open your restaurant Wild Bill's in a summer's
commercial fishing in
Alaska so were you running around and saying like chicken fingers chicken
fingers I mean you were just
chirping about it yes man like you think my passion right I was on chicken
finger dream dude you know so
it's like everywhere and everything and so people weren't just discouraging but
they're more like hey
you got a degree you know you should do this you should do that maybe later in
life you don't come
back but like I'm like no this is what I want to do those bullet makers were
the most encouraging
people I'd seen along the way really all of them like man you go for your
dreams well they saw me
working hard next to them every day they're like yeah I hear for your chicken
fingers and uh anyway and
so Wild Bill said look you can you can cut it go work go up to Knackneck Alaska
and get a job in
Bristol Bay gill netting for sockeye if you want to make some real money go up
there and I did
caught a float plane to King Salmon my sister gave me her freaking flyer miles
flying to Anchorage
got hit King Salmon hitchhiked up to Knackneck went in tent city took a month
to get on a boat
talking to captain into it spent that month that summer commercial fishing in
Alaska is crazy
what uh so what was that time like up there like are the what are you working
with like a lot of
Inuits are you working with like a lot of just local people like that are kind
of hiding out because
it's almost like the like the the icy key west I feel like Alaska is almost
that strange kind of like
place where people can go to kind of get like really get away yeah yeah it's a
mix so Inuits
and Inuits hold the permits right they're original boats so you have the Inuit
population but a lot of
fishermen from Washington you know Oregon things like that and they go up to
spend the summer to make
money and uh they're highly motivated because you can make a ton of money most
of these people just work
that summer but then it 