Raising Cane's continues to dominate

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Raising Cane’s might not sell much—chicken fingers, crinkle fries, Texas toast, coleslaw and one sauce—but it sells a whole lot of it. Last year, the fast-food chain dished out $5.1 billion worth of the stuff, its best year yet, according to 2024 financials obtained by Forbes.

That’s enough to make Todd Graves, the company’s founder and CEO, a whole lot richer. Forbes estimates that Graves has nearly doubled his net worth, to $17.2 billion, on the back of Cane’s banner results.

In 2024, the chain opened more than 100 new restaurants, pushing its total stores to nearly 900 across 42 states. But what really makes Cane’s the envy of the fast food world is just how many customers flock to each store. The chain—which ranked as the 22nd-biggest by revenue on last year’s annual QSR 50 report—rang in $5.7 million in sales per location on average. That was more than double competitors like Zaxby’s and Bojangles, and second among all major quick-service chains, behind only Chick-fil-A. Sales per store climbed to $6.6 million in 2024, per the newly obtained financials, and EBITDA is approaching $1 billion.

For all that, Graves can thank his limited menu, which helps keep costs down, and the chain’s rabid fanbase. Graves named the business after his yellow lab, leans heavily on social media and celebrities to promote it—including letting his friend, rapper Post Malone, design his own location in 2023—and has taken to TV to build his brand and highlight his community engagement efforts, including through Restaurant Recovery, a discovery+ limited series he created to coach independent eateries through the Covid-19 pandemic. Last fall, he appeared as a guest shark on two episodes of the hit ABC show Shark Tank, pitching his marketing savvy to contestants looking for an investor.

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“Our next aspiration is to be a top 10 restaurant brand in the U.S. Think of the big boys—McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Starbucks, Subway—companies that have been open a lot longer than we have,” Graves recently told Nation’s Restaurants News. “We are going to hit $10 billion in sales, average unit volumes of $8 million, and 1,600 restaurants in all major cities and new international locations around the world. We’ll have 150,000 crew members including 16,000 internal promotes. And we’ll give back $100 million to communities. Imagine what we’ll be able to give back to our communities once we become a top 10 brand.”

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