Todd Graves, Raising Cane's

November 9, 2025

Todd Graves, Raising Cane's
Todd Graves, Raising Cane's

Summary

Todd Graves is the founder and CEO of Raising Cane's, one of America's most successful and fastest-growing restaurant chains built on a radically simple concept that nearly everyone told him would fail.

He is an entrepreneur and restaurateur widely regarded as one of the most determined founder-operators in the fast-food industry. Rising from rejection in the mid-1990s to building over 800 locations by the 2020s, he became known for his unwavering commitment to doing one thing better than anyone else—serving quality chicken finger meals with the exact same menu he launched in 1996. He became a household name in restaurant circles through his relentless focus on simplicity, his refusal to franchise or take on outside investors, and his missionary-like devotion to a business he calls his "chicken finger dream."

His career highlights include getting the worst grade in his college business class for the Raising Cane's concept, working as a boilermaker in oil refineries and commercial fisherman in Alaska to fund his first restaurant after being rejected by every bank, opening the first Raising Cane's near LSU in 1996, maintaining over 90% ownership while growing to 900+ locations and billions in revenue by staying fanatically true to a menu that has remained virtually unchanged for three decades.

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Todd
Graves

Todd Graves is the founder and CEO of Raising Cane's, one of America's most successful and fastest-growing restaurant chains.

Todd Graves

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