Graves: Mastering a single menu item is a recipe for success
Todd Graves · Raising Cane's CEO Todd Graves: Building a billion-dollar brand on one menu item | Masters of Scale · May 8, 2026 · at 4:27
Todd Graves, founder and CEO of Raising Cane's, explains why he resisted industry advice to expand menu variety and instead focused solely on chicken fingers.
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“Being to execute on one thing, and do it better than anybody else, Is gonna be a recipe for success, and it ended up being there.”
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“So, for me, as you have, you know, we do fresh chicken, but we have frozen supply to get us through any kind of outbreak.”
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“Ultimately, if people just stop eating chicken, then I'd be extinct. I would absolutely be extinct. I wouldn't start serving steak fingers or something like that. I'd go, look, it's time for me to hang this up.”
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“Even when we went to the Middle East, we kept the product exactly the same. We kept the same thing, and there was a lot of talk there about, there's another sauce they have there. It's like a mayo base and garlic and all this stuff. It's the most popular sauce…”