Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers

Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers is an American fast casual chain specializing in chicken fingers founded in 1996 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by Todd Graves and Craig Silvey. The company is named after Graves' dog, a yellow Labrador. Other yellow Labradors have served as company mascots, as well as certified therapy animals.

History
Founders Todd Graves and Craig Silvey were studying at different universities when they wrote a plan for a chicken-finger restaurant which Silvey submitted in a business plan-writing course, receiving a C-minus grade. At the time, Graves worked at Guthrie's Chicken Fingers.

The business plan was rejected numerous times by potential investors, so Graves and Silvey earned the needed money working various manual labor jobs. They obtained an SBA loan, which they used to open their first restaurant, located in Baton Rouge at the intersection of Highland Road and State Street near the LSU campus. Silvey sold his share of the partnership shortly after the second restaurant opened.

In March 2020, many of Cane's locations switched from dine-in to pick-up and take-out service only because of the COVID-19 pandemic, while others closed temporarily. As of July 2020, certain locations had reopened their dining rooms, although Graves said the company was in no rush to do so on the full scale.

In 2021, in response to a shortage of workers, the company began dispatching hundreds of corporate employees to work in its restaurants as cooks and cashiers, in addition to their existing duties regarding the hiring of new employees. The company planned to hire 10,000 new employees. The company's co-CEO said that corporate employees are trained in the kitchen and on the register under normal circumstances.

In 2022, Raising Cane's sued a shopping center in Hobart, Indiana. After the restaurant chain had signed a long-term lease, it came to light that the shopping center had a non-compete agreement with McDonald's which prohibited other vendors selling deboned chicken products in the complex.

International expansion
The chain first began expanding internationally in 2015, opening its first restaurant in Kuwait. The namesake mascot, a dog, is not seen on signage and merchandise, as dogs are not popular in Kuwait due to religious reasons.