Todd Graves, founder and CEO of Raising Cane's, explains his steadfast commitment to a single-item menu concept when discussing existential consumer risks.
Insight
Graves: Mastering a single menu item is a recipe for success
“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.”
Opinion
Founders should avoid selling restaurant brands to private equity
“And the reason why I try to talk these business founders into not selling to private equity is, and look, they're not all bad. And so, I'm not talking about all of them, but a lot of them are. And look, if you have, Investors, if you have shareholders that the…”
Disclosure
Raising Cane's bought back all franchises to achieve 100% company ownership
“So, we bought them back, they're happy to, and I'm like, a hundred percent, Company restaurant operations.”
Disclosure
Graves: Raising Cane's maintains frozen chicken reserves for outbreak contingencies
“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.”
Assertion Supported
Graves: Raising Cane's kept identical menu when entering the Middle East
“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…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Graves: Fully robotic restaurants will eventually emerge in food service
“And so, I wanna keep the human touch as we go, but I do believe, you know, someday you will have all, you know, robot restaurants serving food, doing it, and I'm gonna use that as a competitive advantage.”