Theo sits down with Raising Cane's founder, Todd Graves, to discuss what it takes to start a business from scratch, how to maintain a balance between success and happiness and Todd tells us how he went from risking his life as a commercial fisherman in Alaska to owning a billion dollar chicken finger dynasty.Todd Graves: https://www.instagram.com/toddgraves
Raising Cane's: https://www.raisingcanes.com
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Today's guest is a business entrepreneur in the food realm.
And he started his deal right in Baton Rouge, his first outlet, his first food locale right there in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I was attending school.
And, you know, now he's built it into a billion-dollar industry.
I'm grateful for his time today just to learn about what his ride has been like and what he's learned and what we can learn from him.
Today's guest is the chicken finger champ from Raising Canes.
It is Mr. Todd Graves.
Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I've been singing just so I'll see you next time
Todd Graves, how are you, man?
Man, I'm great.
I'm even better being up here with you.
Yeah, thanks, man.
Thanks so much for coming in.
So your business now, so Raising Canes is a chicken finger company.
Yeah.
And how big is the business now?
Now we're pushing 600 locations and almost 25 years of business, so it blows me away.
We're about to start cranking about 100 a year.
Good locations, man.
Wow.
It blows me away.
And do you have like a say on what locations are approved or not?
Or do you have other people that do that?
Well, I have a team, a great team that does it.
They work with local brokers, but I approve every site, everyone.
Yeah.
Okay, so that's where it's at now.
So then I want to go back to like, so you grew up in Louisiana, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Born in New Orleans, raised in Baton Rouge.
Oh, nice.
Where'd you go to high school at?
Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge.
Yeah, my kids go there now.
My wife went there, so we're like Episcopal family.
Or alumni, huh?
Yeah, alumni.
Yeah, I saw your son came out here with you right now.
Yeah, yeah.
He's his exams later in the week, and so he had some time off, so I like to bring him when I'm doing business and be around, be exposed to it.
He's just 17, you know, but it's good to get that stuff in his head.
Yeah, is he a pretty decent kid?
Oh, great kid, man.
Great kid.
You know, plays baseball, makes A's, you know, just like, it's great.
His sister's older sister, too, is at LSU and good student, too.
Great.
They like to have a good time, but they keep it good and that.
So it's been easy raising them.
Yeah.
Was it, did you start being a dad like in the middle of, well, you must have started being a dad in the middle of your company growing?
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so Keynes for me was a college business plan, you know, and so I started and opened up, like I said, almost 25 years ago, that first location, Northgates, LSU.
Yeah, I think I went in there, man.
I think I went in there probably.
I mean, I was probably high, honestly, or under the influence of something, which is okay.
They still serve you.
Well, yeah, it said that actually you got to get that chicken, man.
So that's good.
Late night, man.
Even hungover on Sunday, man.
That's our bread and butter, yeah.
Yeah, it was good, man.
Yeah, so I guess, so then take me through that.
So like there's like a lot of rumors out there.
Yeah, you were a fisherman and you got, you were doing fishing.
And so then what happened?
Like you're, yeah, take me how you kind of started the first one.
Yeah, you know, it was college business planning class.
So I grew up working in restaurants and bars and high school, college.
And I was like the kid that did the lemonade stand in the neighborhood, always entrepreneurial.
Right.
Yeah.
So I wanted to open my own restaurant.
Okay.
But I'm a college student, right?
So I'm like, I want to do something that caters to the students.
I wanted to hire students because I knew the work environment they wanted.
I knew college kids will work hard, man.
They'll bust their ass, but they need somebody that cares about them.
Let's listen to some fun music.
You know, let's serve our customers, make them feel good about coming in and spending their money with us.
But let's have a good time when we do it.
So I was one of the first restaurants that actually had music going on in the background, things like that.
But that was my vision.
And so for business planning class, I had a partner then when I started, and we wrote it for his business planning class at LSU.
Got the worst grade in the class.
Oh, yeah.
Been there, baby.
Been in there.
Yeah, you know, but that's fuel, right?
Yeah, no, that's exciting.
Especially.
So if you get that, though, do you feel like, were you guys deterred?
Was the business, so you were the partner at that point?
Yep.
So you have a partner.
I did back then.
He sold out after the second one.
He just wasn't a fry cook cashier.
It didn't make him happy, you know, but I love working drive-throughs.
I like working fry lines.
You know, it's what I love, which is important.
I tell these students now, like, whatever you go into, make sure it's something you like to do, you're passionate about, because if not, you won't be successful at it, right?
You love what you do.
Work comes down to a grind, but if you love it, then you're always happy doing it.
It wasn't the right business for him.
We've stayed dear friends, but he sold out to the second one.
But we have those memories together because worst grade in business planning class.
And it's just a B minus.
He wasn't a hard grader, but it was the worst grade in the class.
But for me, man, it's like, okay, tell me, tell me, I can't do it.
Let me show you.
I'm going to.
Okay.
Okay, so there you are.
So you guys get a little bit of neglect there from the grading system.
And then what happens?
Well, then where do you go from there?
Yeah, so I thought, you know, we needed money to do a spot, right?
And so I took that business plan.
Look, I thought businessmen, you know, needed to look the part.
So bought a cheap suit, right?
Oh, yeah.
Bought a briefcase from like Office Depot, the one with the little brass locks on it, you know, like to look official, right?
I go in like a little.
And some of the locks that they never even opened, dude.
I had one once.
It never, you couldn't even get in it.
They were so cheap, right?
Yeah, I had it on the 000.
I crank it up, bring up the business plan, talk to him about this chicken finger dream I had, right?
Banks were nice enough, but every one of them were like, hey, man, you know, you might want to work in the industry for 10 years.
You might want to do this, that, and the other.
You're not in a position for us to lend you money.
Once again, no, no, no makes you want to do it that much more.
But had you had any experience in that line of work at all?
I mean, yeah.
I've always worked in restaurants and did it and knew it.
Like, I knew how much my aprons would cost.
You know what I mean?
Like, I knew it so well.
But people had a problem back then of just a chicken finger only concept, right?
Because quick service, this is what happened to Business Plan.
They said, you didn't do your research because like McDonald's is adding all this variety and all these different things.
You're doing the opposite.
You want to do just one thing, these chicken finger meals.
It's not where your industry's going.
But I knew doing one thing and doing it better than anybody else would always pay off.
Okay.
And was there that option out there at the time?
Because I remember growing up, they had Pope Pies, and that's turned more into like a place where people fight, I feel like these days.
It's more like a boxing.
It's almost like a mini UFC over there sometimes.
But was there anything that was serving just that chicken finger?
Yeah, Guthrie's, they had started, Guthrie's chicken fingers started off in Auburn years before.
And they did University of Georgia.
They did Florida State.
And so the model was out there.
It just wasn't in Louisiana, right?
And so it was hard for them to see that vision.
And for me, I just knew college kids like good food.
And if you can do that chicken finger meal, like you said, and our biggest business was the late night business to start off with, and it went into the days.
So I stayed true to it.
I knew I could do it.
But this, to me, was like, this is my dream, right?
So I'm not going to shut down.
I'm not going to stop.
I'm never going to give up.
So I got a job through a friend of a friend working as a bowler maker in refineries, right, to do turnaround shift work to raise money.
Okay, so Boilermaker, what is it?
Well, so like when a refinery needs one section to be fixed, right?
Put into equipment, replace old stuff, they'll get a group of bowler makers to go in and do all that grunt work.
Okay.
But they pay you big money because you work long hours during the week and they want that section of that refinery come back as soon as possible because they want the oil production going.
Everything.
Welding, cutting trays out, putting in new equipment.
I mean, it's pretty much everything.
And you have to learn it on the fly.
But it's like they want that thing open as soon as possible to get that oil production going so you can make a ton of money if you're willing to work hard.
Okay, so you got down there, so you're working at the oil refinery.
So how long after you guys have this business plan that you're able to put it together and kind of get out to?
Full two years because after my refinery stint, I needed more money.
And I met a guy named Wild Bill Tolar.
No kidding.
Everybody had nicknames.
Mine was Hollywood.
Longer story.
Oh, dude, we had a guy.
I remember we used to work at this summer camp, and they had a guy who would come down, and I shouldn't have even worked in there, man.
I was dating a girl, and she got fired.
And then I was like, they were like, oh, you can work here, right?
And so then they had a guy who would come and take pictures of all the kids swimming and stuff every day.
And his name was Wild Bill, right?
So finally.
He was Wild Bill.
Well, one day I'm like, hey, are we ever going to see those pictures from Wild Bill?
And they're like, who's Wild Bill?
I'm like, the photographer?
Like, we don't have a photographer.
It was just some guy.
Just some random dudes.
I'm Wild Bill and the photographer.
Yeah, taking pictures of kids swimming, which was a little not ideal.
So Wild Bills can be interesting.
They can be.
This guy was old wild ass, and he earned his nickname.
But he said, look, you don't mind working hard and you're trying to raise money for this Chicken Finger Dream.
These bowler makers were incredibly encouraging to me, man.
Like, man, you're going to open your restaurant, Wild Bills in the Summers, commercial fishing in Alaska.
So were you running around and saying, like, chicken fingers, chicken fingers?
I mean, you were just chirping about it?
Yes, man.
Like, you think of my passion, right?
I was on Chicken Finger Dream, dude.
You know, so it's like everywhere and everything.
And so people weren't just discouraging, but they're more like, hey, you got a degree.
You know, you should do this.
You should do that.
Maybe later in life you can come back.
But I'm like, no, this is what I want to do.
Those Boilermakers were the most encouraging people I'd seen along the way.
Really?
All of them.
Like, man, you go for your dreams.
Well, they saw me working hard next to them every day.
And they're like, yeah, I'll hear for your chicken fingers.
And anyway, and so Wild Bill said, look, you can cut it.
Go work.
Go up to Knackneck, Alaska, and get a job in Bristol Bay gill netting for Sake Eye.
If you want to make some real money, go up there.
And I did, caught a float plane to King Salmon.
My sister gave me her freaking flyer miles flying to Anchorage.
Got hit King Salmon, hitchhiked up to Knackneck, went in Temp City.
Took a month to get on a boat, talking to Captain into it.
Spent that summer commercial fishing in Alaska.
It's crazy.
So what was that time like up there?
Are you working with a lot of Inuits?
Are you working with a lot of just local people that are kind of hiding out?
Because it's almost like the icy Key West.
I feel like Alaska is almost that strange kind of place where people can go to kind of really get away.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a mix.
So Inuits, and Indians hold the permits, right?
They're the original boats.
So you have the Inuit population, but a lot of fishermen from Washington, you know, Oregon, things like that.
And they go up to spend the summer to make money.
And they're highly motivated because you can make a ton of money.
Most of these people just work that summer.
But then it was interesting because when I got on the boat, I realized how motivated they are, right?
So there's like, you can go out and during the peak of the season, salmon are born in a stream, right?
They swim out to the ocean.
They're these beautiful silver fish.
All of them have a cycle between four and like seven years.
And they know to come back to the original river, up the same river, they spawn and they die.
And it's the cycle.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
So when they're coming in during the summer, man, it's droves of fish.
It's like a boomerang almost.
Yeah, man.
Boom and boom.
And so then we were fishing for sockeye salmon.
The Japanese were buying like 95% of it, paying top dollar.
Oh, yeah.
And you can't keep going out into the ocean to intercept these fish, right?
You have a Loran line you couldn't cross.
So if you set your net on that line in front of another net, you just made like 10 times more money, right?
So, but is there a lot of jockeying for position out there?
Total jockeying, man.
You picked it up.
You nailed it, man.
So it's like you will play chicken with other boats because you want that better set for your net.
And these captains are motivated, man.
We ram boats.
Boats rammed us.
My partner went out with me then.
His boat ram, his captain rammed another boat and sunk it out there, man.
It was so crazy stuff, man.
People were dying out there.
All this stuff because you're working 20-hour days during the peak, right?
And it's not just four hours of sleep.
It's like an hour here and there.
Go take a nap.
You're working so hard.
So people get tired and then they get lazy.
They get not careful and they get thrown out with the nets or whatever's going on.
So imagine a kid on a chicken finger dream on the back of this 36-foot boat.
National Geographic is going over to film the madness.
Medical helicopters are taking people out.
You're hearing so-and-so boat just had a death and all this.
And you're filling up the boat with fish.
Waves are crashing over the side.
You're scared you're going to crash.
You're going to either get hit or you're going to sink.
But I was out there for that chicken finger dream.
Dang, it's almost like that's almost like the UFC out there.
It sounds like the ultimate fishing championship or something.
Yeah, I can't even imagine people jocking.
And the hours that you're on those boats, like what's that kind of time like, the hours that you're on those boats?
You just stay out.
And so like, you know, time's money.
So if you have to go into the dock, you know what I mean, you're missing money.
So they have tender boats that you drop your fish off to.
So you just live out there.
You're staying on the boat.
So you're out there now, and then the little boats come by and you guys will just fill them up with fish.
Fill them up with fish, yeah.
You take them to tender boat, take your nets off, boom, put it back in, and you go right back at it.
Now, was there any drug use or anything like that on the boats?
Because I could imagine some people would be Adderalled up or something during it, you know?
Back then, you know, Adderalled hadn't hit its stride, you know?
So you just work and your body just gets conditioned to it, man.
You become so hard.
Like, when I came back, it was hard to get back into society a little bit because you're just like, you have to just constantly work.
Then it gets cold.
Then it gets that.
You get beat up.
And then I came back, I was kind of like, man, I don't know if I've fit in just that.
A couple weeks later, I got soft again, you know?
Yeah.
Start using soap again.
Yeah, exactly.
Now, so that's interesting.
So what do you think about Like, because that takes a certain type of person, you know, to go and do that type of work, that type of grueling environment, where it's almost like a testament of your will, in addition to you having to be employed at the same time.
You're doing a job, but you also have to have this internal kind of thing going on where you are going to hold the line.
You are going to keep going.
Do you think that that was something that was always with you, even as a child?
Like, were you always just kind of like a not a sucker for punishment, but were you always somebody that wanted to be like in the fire?
Or when you look back on your youth, do you see moments where you kind of understand your behaviors then and you still see them in yourself now?
Yeah, you know, a lot of it.
And so I'll use sports as an example, right?
And so just playing something like football, right?
Well, once on the football team, I was, I mean, look, I went to 2A private school.
So I thought like we're not playing.
It's not like, yeah, everybody plays.
So it's not like I'm saying I'm some great athlete.
Right.
But like I wanted to be the leader on the team, right?
Like I wanted to be the leader.
So I could have played receiver or running back or whatever, but I wanted to be quarterback because I wanted to man the offense.
And 2A football also played on the defensive side, went to defensive end, but I wanted to be in charge.
And then I knew I could pull the most out of everybody, right?
And so the best thing about playing 2A private ball is everybody plays.
You got to get the most out of them.
So I knew how to motivate them versus chewing their ass.
It was like in their face was, we're going to do this, man.
We're going to do good.
And I think those leadership things and that hard work, because I left everything on the field, also wanted to do well in school, you know, and things like that.
So that determination was always there and really paid off later in a big way when I wanted to start this dream.
Right.
You know?
Right, because yeah, I guess now that's something you notice in some people.
Some people are just good motivators, you know?
Do you feel like that's probably one of your strongest suits?
Yeah, because look, man, you know, when I went and worked in high school and college and restaurants, it was more of a, you're doing wrong, yell at you, you know, and negative reinforcement doesn't work.
In my business, if you go through Raising Canes, you're going to see a bunch of happy, smiling people, but they're going to crank out your food as quick as they can, good quality, but it comes from positive motivational management.
Look, like I go through my kitchens, go see my crews all over the country, right?
But I go through the kitchen.
Hey, that's nice toast.
Right.
And you think telling a college kid they're like, yeah, I'm just grilling toast.
Big deal.
They're like, hey, thanks.
Hey, thanks for the hard work, y'all.
Appreciate it.
Hearing good things you're doing here.
The community loves you.
Positive, positive, positive.
Because look, it comes down to it.
It's hard to work long shifts in a restaurant, right?
But they know I care about them.
Then they work even harder, right?
We got a question that came in right here, actually.
Here we go right here for you.
And this isn't live, just so you know.
Okay.
And you know what?
I'm going to pour my liquid death into a Kane's cup for you today.
You want to do that with me, bro?
I don't know.
I'm drinking something called liquid death, but I trust you.
Yeah, it's just water, man.
I mean, unless you don't make it through this.
It's a good water, man.
It's actually a really good water.
It is good.
It's delicious.
It really is, man.
I don't know how they did it, but they did it somehow.
Yeah, that's delicious.
I'm a big water guy, by the way, so that's good stuff.
Me too.
Well, cheers, brother.
Cheers.
Yeah, let's get to this question right here.
Here we go.
Hey, Todd.
Hey, Theo.
I just wanted to come and ask a quick question.
I'm out of Raising Canes 61 in Monroe.
And I wanted to share my favorite story with Todd was one time he came through and bought a whole bunch of cookies for everybody on staff.
And I always thought that was such a nice thing to do.
So I wanted to ask Todd, what is your favorite memory for Raising Canes?
Would it be your first store?
Would it be somewhere else?
Would it be your time before as like a Boilermaker, sockeye salmon fishing?
What you got?
Gang, gang?
Boom, boom.
Gang, baby.
That's a good question.
Yeah, do you have a favorite moment?
There could be many, but do you have one that kind of stands out to you or a sentimental moment, something that happened along the way?
Man, you know, I have so many of them.
And here's the thing.
When it's so hard to start something, you build a culture of appreciation.
Like every restaurant matters to me.
Every crew member matters to me.
Every box that goes out to every customer matters to me.
And so when you have this appreciation, all these moments, so like going through there and seeing a crew working hard, I'm like, hey, go get them some cookies.
They're working hard.
Do this thing is and seeing them care.
Well, he remembers that.
It's just interesting.
I mean, we just ask for any, for submissions of thoughts or questions.
So that, you know, like it's just interesting that that's what someone would send.
Yeah, you know, and he remembered that moment, right?
And look, he's going to carry that other things he does throughout his life and say, look, treat people well.
And when you do that, it comes back.
So everything is just the evolution of it and where we're going now and now being able to do hundreds of locations a year and things like that.
They're all special.
But I tell you, the thing that means the most to me is now having, you know, we do well and financially and then be able to do the things on behalf of my crew that help out people, right?
You know, like helping people that aren't as fortunate as us.
And I involve my crew when we do that, but I'm the representative.
I'm like, it's off y'all's hard work.
I'd have to say those moments are the most priceless to me because it's me and my team doing that and we can help out some people that need it.
Is there one that kind of stands out?
Or just one you'd like to cite even to kind of like...
So Batner's has a Big Buddy program, right?
And so it was the first thing I got involved with.
Their office is right down from the mothership, our first location.
But Gay and I, she's a wonderful woman.
She's devoted her life to help out these kids that just don't have the same opportunities I did.
Do what now?
Gay, who you're.
Gay back, she's in charge of the Big Buddy program, the director there.
But seeing these kids go through and helping them when they're kids and exposing other things and then be successful later in life, they all come back.
They'll send letters.
And Gay gets these letters back.
Hey, you influenced me here.
You did these things.
And now, hey, I got my law degree.
Or, hey, I went into entertainment.
Or I went for my dreams and you didn't give up.
So I did.
I'd have to say that's the best.
Also, just getting from our crew members, man, like the biggest moment recently is, you know, last couple of years, my crew has ranked me as a top 100 CEO in the country.
It's this glass door deal at all categories.
There's only a couple of restaurants in this deal, but that's them voting for that.
And so that was the biggest recognition personally for me is I'm like, my crew just said, you know, that I'm a good leader.
I got almost 40,000 crew members.
I can't see them.
I don't know them all by name and things like that.
But because of that leadership and that their leader treats them right and does that, man, you talk about it.
What an honor, right?
That's amazing, man.
Congratulations.
Well, it was quite an honor.
Where does it come from?
So like, what was your dad like when you were young?
Yeah, just he was just always exposed me to business, kind of like I'm doing now, and just always about hard work and then always about be polite to people, things like that, those values.
And so I do the same things with my kids now.
You know, I'm like taking them through is like, like you met Charlie earlier.
He's a good young man.
You can tell he just has a good, he's a very, yeah, you can just tell he's a kind guy right when you meet him.
Yeah, and that's what's the most important thing in life, right?
I tell them the most important thing you could ever do is be kind, be kind, be kind.
Be kind to people, man.
And no matter where.
And look, they've grown up, they've always had their own money and nice things and this amazing stuff.
Like, he gets to come here with you, and he meets all the.
We went from Kane Brown's today with Kane's food truck.
He gets to meet all these people.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, Kane was on a couple of months ago.
What a great dude.
But he gets it like, hey, and so what I'm trying to teach these kids is we're in a great position.
And for us, we can help other people out.
Amen.
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
I find it's tough because I find it tough whenever I get stressed not to carry that on to who people that I'm working with or in my work environment.
It's been tough for me sometimes, just personally, just to like, you know, to it's been tough for me to manage some of that sometimes.
Yeah.
I think, and I don't know if it's because I don't take proper, maybe enough care of myself or like invest in enough of my self-care kind of to make sure that I'm comfortable, you know?
Yeah.
Sometimes I have this thing where I always want to struggle.
Yeah, but that keeps you, that probably keeps you, keeps you driven, right?
Yeah, it keeps me driven, but also it keeps me a little bit stressed out sometimes, I think, you know?
And so especially now as my life has gotten bigger in the past couple of years, it's like, so figuring that out for myself has been kind of tough, you know, because, yeah, I would love to be more in that space where I'm leading through kindness all the time, you know?
Well, you know, I wish I could give you some advice on that.
And so the people that are closest to me working all the time, they see the stressed out Todd.
They see the, because, man, you know how it goes, stacked.
You're a detail guy like me, and you have all the details, and we need to be driving.
I hate the inefficiency of time.
It's like we need to be cranking.
So the people that's close kind of see the other Todd is like zip, zip, zip, zip, zip.
And like, we're supposed to be on this in 10 minutes.
But they understand.
And then I'll tell them, look, sorry, distressed.
And so they know this.
And then I'll take the times when I can get a breath.
I appreciate you.
I do.
But I make sure when I go see my restaurants or I go see the big offices and do those things, I make sure they just feel nothing but love.
Right.
Because if they're not around me enough, they don't understand.
Like, Todd's just stressed right now.
I need to be there.
They're busting their butt every day, all the things they're doing.
So even if I see something that's not right where it should be, you know, and they do a great job always, but I'm not going to go in and tell them anything negative.
Now, I'll talk to the district manager later and people say, hey, we probably need to get this better.
And I saw this, but motivational, but I'm the same way.
Go around your tight group and they just know you and they love you and they know you've got all the pressure on you, you know.
I think it's hard for that to lead, but we can figure it out someday.
Yeah.
Or I guess I should just do a better job sometimes to communicate with people when I am stressed.
Just say, hey, look, I'm a little stressed right now.
Just to let you know if I act stressed, it's because I am.
It's not personal.
Yeah, and that's what I do.
But you always have to be on for everybody.
Everybody wants Theo, you know, and the Theo.
And that's a lot of pressure, man.
That's a lot to have.
But yeah, them understanding, hey, I'm tired.
I didn't sleep last night.
Hey, I'm going to be stressed right now.
And they know you.
They know you.
They love you.
And I only got one chicken finger.
I'm the chicken finger.
So you know, the batter's been all chewed off, I feel like, sometimes, man, that's for sure.
We got a question right here that came in for you, man.
What up, Todd?
What up, Theo?
This is Barrett from Sulfur, Louisiana.
What's up, brother?
First of all, Theo, I want to say it's real fucked up that you announced a tour schedule and there's no dates in Louisiana.
I think you're big time now bouncing back and forth between L.A. and Nashville, and you forgot where you came from.
Show us some love, man.
Give us some shows.
Alexandria, I'm going to come to Alexandria.
Todd, I want to say, personally, thank you so much for opening up the cane store here in Sulphur right after the hurricanes, whenever our area was affected by Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta.
You are one of the first companies, if not the first company, that was serving food, giving people jobs, giving people stuff to eat, man.
Just giving us some semblance of life being back to normal.
So we really appreciate that, honestly.
My question is, you've already conquered the chicken tender game.
So what's next?
You know what I mean?
You got people like Chick-fil-A.
They got all the sauces.
Y'all going to start messing with some new sauces?
You're going to start doing bone-in chicken.
The real question, when are we getting spicy tenders?
All right, so let me know what's next in the pipeline.
Gang.
Gang, baby.
That's a good question.
Yeah.
Is there anything kind of new on the horizon?
Or have there been items?
Answer his question first.
I'm sorry.
Go on.
No, it was a great question.
But no, I mean, I've always believed in doing one thing and do it better than anybody else.
And that's why we have Raising Kings Chicken.
Our tag line is one love.
And I have one love.
It says quality chicken finger meals.
And so if you do what you do well and consistently do it great, your customers will come back.
And let me give you a reason.
Let me tell you this.
It's us and Chick-fil-A are one and two in quick service averaging in volumes.
Like McDonald's sales are like a million less than mine, right?
It's my repetitive customers that come back because they're going to get that quality every time with a smiling face.
And so if I added different things, right?
Added spicy, I've added these.
One, I wouldn't be as quick in the drive-thru, right?
Because the choices go down.
I wouldn't be able to cook to order.
Like if you come through our line, we have a cook to order system that literally goes through.
I have that whole fry line set up to deliver that quality meal with the best quality you can get.
But if I added all these different things, bone and chicken takes different times, I'd have whole times.
My quality would go down.
My speed would go down.
And it wouldn't be our concept.
Our concept is quality food spurred with fast food, speed, and convenience.
And adding different things and losing focus would lose while we're special.
So when you even say the choices, so you're even talking to the minutiae of the fact that somebody then at a drive-through is having to make choices, and that's going to take more time.
That's going to take more time, right?
Wow, it's interesting.
I've never thought of the time it takes, not only on the time on my side of the counter as the company, but the time it takes managing the time of the person showing up without them even really realizing it.
Yeah, I mean, we're over 60% drive-through.
People want to come through and they want to get it quick, right?
People know their order of canes.
Box, no saw, extra toast, extra sauce, boom, sweet tea, you're out the door or you're out through the drive-thru.
And so we want to keep that time to a nil.
So, I mean, even like not distracting things that are going on.
Like, so even we have like right now, I did this restaurant recovery show, but I got a picture of me and Snoop helping this one restaurant out.
Even that makes people stop for a little bit and go, do, do, do, maybe ask a question in the window.
And then we're like, hey, we need to rethink this, right?
I want them getting through because they got 20 cars behind them.
Yeah.
You know?
Wow.
Wow, that's interesting, man.
Was there now, was there ever a moment along the way where somebody's like, hey, man, you know, you guys need to do always.
Always, huh?
Always.
The experts are always like, hey, you know, you guys really need to add a chicken finger salad.
You know, the health trends on the da-da-da, this, that, and the other.
And when I was younger, I listened a little more because I'm like, wait, maybe these people are smarter than me.
Maybe they know more than me.
And look, I'm always constantly learning.
But my gut said, no, because if I do that chicken finger salad, chicken finger salad, the quality is not really there.
You know, it's not the same thing.
It won't be craveable.
And they want to come back.
And so people told me, but they scared me.
They were like, well, you're going to get the cancel vote.
Like if one person in the car, one of the parents wants it, they're not going to go to you to go somewhere else.
I'm like, no, the kids are going to push them because they want that quality, right?
Staying true to what I've done, not listening.
I know who I am.
And I'm not trying to be all things to all people.
Because if you try to be that, I mean, you're going to not be anything to anybody, right?
I want that craveable customer.
We call them Kaniacs.
And it's paid off, brother.
Yeah, and I thought it was cocaine at first, man.
Trust me.
Because I remember the first time I ever did cocaine was down at LSU, man, and I took a run.
I thought it was a performance-enhancing drug.
I didn't know that it was like a drug for just night use or whatever.
So I went on a run down by Blue Monet, down by the railroad tracks, dude.
I probably ran almost 15 miles.
Oh, Jesus.
Yeah, that was not good, dude.
That was a bad.
That was a heart.
Not good for the heart, bro.
I still sometimes, I can still feel my heart feels like it has a horse hoof in it, man.
Every now and then it gets a little trotty.
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The most joy I had in my career was before people knew that I was funny.
I mean, some people knew, but before like a decent amount of people knew.
Man, because then you had the element of surprise, you know?
There was something nice about the element of surprise, like you're going to be surprised, you know?
You can be surprised when I lay this joke and I know things right, right?
Yeah.
And now people probably expect it, right?
Yeah, now people expect it, which is great, but it's, you can, you can't really replicate that when they didn't know.
Yeah.
You know?
Was there moments like I noticed in my business as my career goes on that there are times where it's like my career feels like it's on a little bit of like a you know on Elon Musk's golf cart like it's really cruising, you know?
And then there's times where it kind of has lulls and I start to wonder what's going on.
Take me through some of the trajectory of how you guys got out of one location and then what started to happen.
And if there were times where you felt like, okay, this is where we've kind of maximized.
Did you get into the business?
Like, how did you have to transition from being at the place to then getting more into the business side of it?
And just take me through some of that, please.
Well, for me, you know, the whole business has been one series of getting your butt kicked and learning from those mistakes, right?
So if you're not making mistakes, you're not getting out in the middle of things, right?
And so, you know, one restaurant to the second was the hardest growth we ever had.
You know, I grew too quick.
You know, it was the other side of campus, the one on Lee Drive.
You probably went to that one too.
I probably fried your chicken late night there.
But I didn't have my staff ready.
I didn't have all my people together.
And like, some people wouldn't show up on shifts.
And I'm like, wait, I can't be at both restaurants.
And then getting butt kicked there.
That's actually when my partner ended up saying, hey, man, this just isn't for me.
Wow.
So it really rattled the cage a little.
Well, he just was like, look, you're okay coming back all the time.
And like when I have time, when you have time off, you'll go work on schedules and doing learning better training programs.
He's like, I want to go back and read the Wall Street Journal.
He was just more of that business side of it.
But like going from there, then I grew five restaurants in five months.
These old drive-thru, double drive-thrus and Baton Roos were going.
Once again, I stretched us too much.
We did a good job opening up in Lafayette, which is the first one, Lafayette, Louisiana, first one out of the market.
Crushed it there.
But then I'm like, I got to hit Dallas and Houston.
There's LSU grads there.
But I grew in both those markets.
I didn't set them up properly.
I grew too quick.
Got my butt kicked in both of them.
Lost a bunch of money until I could bring it back up.
Series of things like that.
And now, so if there was suggest, so how would you have done it differently looking back on it a little bit if you could have done it differently?
Well, just so people can learn.
Yeah, yeah.
So for me personally, and now with the scale of the business is it was actually good for me to go and make those mistakes because now, like, I know it sounds like 100 locations now is a lot, but look, I'm 25 years in the business, right?
We're at that point now I can open quality locations.
So if I didn't learn the hard way, that's the way I learn, you know, but if I didn't have to learn the hard way, when I moved to Dallas and Houston to put those restaurants in there, I would have slowed down, made sure I had the right team and that they were properly supported.
I mean, these poor people didn't have the right support for me.
They worked themselves to the bone.
That didn't feel good, right?
And I would have gone the right way, taken my time, done it right.
Now, still quick, you know, and got open and did the things this, but I would have taken a lot more time setting it up.
Plus the branding in those areas.
I thought you just opened the doors and everybody knew you and came in.
No, no, it was like a ghost town.
Now I'm back on the streets trying to get people in.
And so I would have taken my time, built a more strategic plan, and then grew from there.
But that helped because when I went into New Market, still to the day, look, I'm coming into Nashville now.
I got the food truck here.
It's going around to see people, like seeding the location.
I'm here personally.
People getting to know me, things like that.
Those things have stayed with me and our openings since those times have been a lot more successful.
You know, it's interesting to hear some of that.
Like Jimmy John, John Liato, you know, he came, he's been on the podcast and he stopped by this morning to say hey to you, which I thought was really nice.
And he talked about whenever they first started franchising, how it just got away from him and the stores weren't how he needed them to be.
And he had to go on like a cross-country tour to all of the locations and either buy them back from the people if they felt like It wasn't really the right fit, or to keep them, you know, to inspire them and kind of, you know, give actually put his stamp on the way it should be done and to help them, you know.
And I thought that was pretty fascinating.
That seemed like a moment where he really had to get back out there and almost do more work than you had to do in the beginning.
Absolutely, because you know, entrepreneurs, you're excitable and you want to grow and you want to build, you create.
Look, that's our art.
Our art is our business is growing, right?
And spreading it.
We get happy when new people become raving fans of our brands.
It's what our gift of the world is.
But you get sucked in and you grow too quick and then you got to go back and fix it.
And it's way harder to fix it than to go in the right way.
Yeah.
And so the right way would be what, just a little bit, just be a little more patient, you think?
Like, let things take longer than you think they're going to?
Yeah, look, go in with the right team.
And so, look, so my growth, I'm just about all company restaurants in the United States.
I got the franchise.
What does that mean?
Sorry, just so we know.
Well, so most of the people like Quick Service are franchise models, right?
So you have corporate, they have all the intellectual properties, the names.
Like McDonald's is a franchise model.
Franchise model, right.
Subways, franchise model, Taco Bell.
And so they have the systems and processes.
Then you go with local franchisees who basically license or franchise your concept, and then they go run those restaurants.
So they do it.
You lose a lot of control when you do that.
You have to have real good franchisees.
And so for me, I would rather open company restaurants because I can control them.
I mean, I want these things run exceptionally well.
It's all personal to me.
And so I have more control.
And I choose to partner with the restaurant partner I have at that restaurant who he or she is like working their butt off.
They're the Todd Graves in their trade area where they live.
And so for me, it's a lot more debt.
You know, people will corporations will franchise because the local franchisees will have to put in the debt on the building and, you know, all the startup money and things like that.
I'd rather take that on with my credit facility, partner with my internal people, let them become wealthy and their family get to enjoy that and to do it.
But taking your time is setting it up, getting the right people to run your restaurant, whether it's a franchisee or it's company, you need to set those people up for success.
You need to train, train, overtrain.
You need to have so much support going in to get them started because it's hard to get that cash flow going.
It's hard to get that buzz going in your community.
So slowing down, being strategic with growth.
And I'm glad you're bringing this up because this is someone might be listening right now that's going to grow or something and they're going to go too quick.
And it's like, you will have to come back and fix it.
And then you'll slow down your growth so much.
Set it up with the right people, train properly, then give them support.
I want to let you guys know that tickets are now available at theovon.com slash tour.
We have added shows in St. Louis and Durham, as well as Albany, New York.
And we are adding another one in Columbus as well.
They're on sale for Charlotte, Cincinnati, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Wilmington, Wilkes Bayer, Minneapolis, Charleston, Richmond, Baltimore, Buffalo.
Thank you very much.
Check it out theovon.com slash tour.
And thank you so much for letting me live out my dream.
I'm excited to see you there.
I look good here.
Your hair looks great, by the way.
Oh, thank you very much, man.
Amazing.
Yeah, it's coming in well, man.
I've had hair transplants, too.
I've had hair taken out of the back and put in the front.
Oh, no, shit.
Your hair's thick, man.
Thanks, man.
It's pretty cool.
I like getting surgery, so it's like, for me, because I like just you wake up there and there's people around.
Like everybody cares about you.
You know, I feel like so cared about when I'm at the surgery place.
Well, I've had the same haircut since I've been three.
Have you?
Oh, yeah.
You know what?
I could almost see that, man.
Some old hair.
Did you go to church with that cut or no?
Hell yeah.
They used to put a bowl around the head to cut it now.
I'm not that thick anymore, so I can't use the bowl technique.
Dude, my mom used to take me to this lady named Miss Bobby.
Well, first of all, our bus driver would cut our hair in Covington.
So this dude, Mr. Nat, every like two weeks, he would park the bus on the way home for $1.50.
He would cut your hair, dude.
And he literally would just go around $1.50.
Everybody got the same cut.
There you go.
Like, literally, we all looked like we were part of some cult without Kool-Aid, right?
Like, just everybody was just, you show up, you just have hair all over your mom.
I was like, what happened?
The bus driver, I love it.
I got my hair cut by a guy named RL.
It was this place called Headquarters.
And remember back then, like the barbers, like, they were family.
Like, they got it.
And we got in high school.
See, all my friends went to RL.
We were like, hey, can you do this cool cut?
This and that.
He'd be like, he'd listen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Finally had to leave RL.
And we all did.
And he took it personal.
He hadn't talked to me to this day.
Damn.
I believe that, man.
I remember those days, they always had the combs in that little cup.
Oh, that thing.
Remember that?
Blue liquid or whatever.
Sitting in there.
It always felt like it was for your dad, you know?
Yeah.
Oh, God.
That shit was crazy, man.
And they would get that other thing with that kind of like smoke in it or whatever and put it on your neck.
Yeah, what was that?
I don't know.
It's had that dust.
Yeah, it was that powder.
It made me all chalky, man.
I'm like, what is this?
They thought that was like the nice touch at the end.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was a little bit.
Old school.
Yeah, it was a little bit.
I always left out of there looking like Benjamin Franklin a little bit, I feel like.
We got a question that came up right here for you.
Let's get into it.
Hi, Todd and Theo.
This is Ethan from Long Beach, California.
Todd, I'm a huge fan of your company.
Everyone at your stores is always in such a good mood and is so friendly.
I would love to hear more about this restaurant recovery project you're doing.
It sounds like an awesome cause to support small businesses.
And yeah, I really think it's going to be a great thing for, especially during this time.
Have a great day.
Thanks, brother.
Great.
Thank you.
Yeah, so when the pandemic started, our business sales actually went up.
Okay.
Okay.
So we have drive-through format.
So that became a thing.
I don't know if you remember when it started.
Of course you do, but it was like essential business.
And like people couldn't go to restaurants, but they could go through drive-thrus.
Oh, wow.
So drive-through was suddenly just the luckiest thing on earth.
Dude, exactly.
And so, man, like our sales go up, but we're up like 10, even up to 20%, right?
It didn't feel good because where we're getting that business from was these family-owned, independent restaurants that predominantly dine in.
And so I thought what we could do, and I mean, I got on social media and stuff and like support small business, think about going to them.
They're suffering.
Us chains are fine, you know, and it's like, what can I do?
I've done TV before.
I understand the power of it.
And I said, well, you know what?
Being an entrepreneur, I said, look, I went hired a production company, started restaurant recovery.
I knew I could do it during that time.
My team was good.
So I picked 10 markets where Kane's markets are so I could use our help with our people, pick these legendary restaurants, these family restaurants.
They're just really going through a hard time.
Took in a team, kind of like an extreme home makeover deal, got them exposure.
Involved a lot of my celeb friends to come help out too, which was really special and neat.
Yeah, I saw Rob Schneider did one.
Yeah, yeah, Snyder's nice enough to come out and do the Phoenix episode and like just this family.
She's a Pakistani lady and does a business with her son Omar.
And I mean, look, they serve just really, really good food, but they're in Tempe and the university shut down.
No classes.
Oh, yeah.
They're pictures.
Gone, you know, overnight.
And so I brought Rob in.
Also, DeAndre Hopkins came in.
Oh, that's cool.
Dude, he came in the Monday after the catch.
These famous catch in the end zone.
And so I got him to come out.
And these are just community guys, right?
So Rob's like, yes, I'll help out.
DeAndre's like, yes, I'll come out.
So DeAndre fired at my team.
We got to get this thing done in 48 hours.
So he started off.
They were like, wow.
Work production even went higher than I could think because this group works real hard.
And then Rob came in with the family.
Like, look, you could just see the stress on their face.
But him coming in, funny guy, caring.
They're laughing.
Like, look, we're going to get through this together.
Really great, man.
And basically the thing I was able to see more than anything else is they're all predominantly dining room business.
That was gone, taken away.
So I needed to put them into like, make them a to-go machine, which sounds easy, but it's not.
Like, to do it right, you got to have mobile ordering.
You got to have curbside delivery.
It takes a lot of technology, right?
It's not something a restaurant owner is just trying to keep the business open every day, racking up credit card debt, keeping their people employed.
So I think you could do that, right?
Especially if it's not a man.
You think of a small business guy.
He shows up, he puts the pot on the stove in the morning and starts making the gazpacho or whatever it is.
So yeah, that person isn't going to go from that to having that app or that ability to make things mobile.
They don't have the resources for that, right?
So I could go in and help them do that and then preserve these places, right?
I mean, look, you know, I'm a chain and I like getting business, obviously, right?
And we do a good job and we work hard for it, but we have all the advantages.
I got a huge marketing budget.
I got big, shiny buildings, right, in the best locations.
And people see that and it's that constant state of mind.
So what I try to tell people is, hey, I'm glad you came to Keynes, but look, think about that neighborhood restaurant that you love.
Like they need your business.
They don't make that much money.
And when they're gone, they get replaced by high-rise R-chain.
And we don't need any more of those.
We need those legendary restaurants.
Diversity of thoughts.
Small business.
Go to that small hardware store.
You got to go to Big Box to get some stuff.
Go to that little hardware shop.
Go support that small business, a backbone of our country, plus different thoughts.
It makes things crazy.
They're the cultural centers of our neighborhood.
We need to support them.
Yeah.
Do you worry about, I know like minimum wage increase and stuff like that.
Do you worry about that affecting businesses?
Like I hear stuff about like that.
Do you worry about that affecting small businesses?
Yeah, I worry about the people that just don't have enough sales to support it and might not have as sophisticated pricing strategies.
Okay.
So for me, you know, quick service restaurants might make between 5% and 10% bottom line.
Okay.
So everybody comes in, you're doing good if you made $0.05 on a dollar.
$0.10 on a dollar, you're doing great.
So that means if somebody spends a dollar, you make $0.10.
You make doing well.
It's usually between $0.05 and $0.10.
So there's just not much margin there, right?
Wow.
And between that $0.5 and $10 for every dollar spent there, when you have commodity pressures and things like that, price of chicken goes up, then it just goes down.
And so you just got slim margins.
That's before taxes.
That's $0.05 to $0.10 a dollar.
Before then, you go get the taxes on it.
So if I spend $10 at a Raising Canes or at a, what's the quick service you're talking about?
Yeah, quick service fast food.
So if I spend $10 at a quick service restaurant, then if they're making 10 cents of that, so if they're making $1 out of $10 that I spend, then they're doing well.
Doing well.
Wow.
That's 10% doing well.
And then that's before taxes, right?
Wow, and that's real numbers, huh?
That's real numbers.
And so when you think about it, we don't have margin to share, right?
Because if labor prices go up, right, and you got to do it, you have to pass it on to the customer.
There's no way that you can just supply it.
Because if it goes below 5% and gets lower.
He can't lose money.
Well, and then you can't go.
You're not going to go put the investment into build and grow and create more jobs and do it, right?
So the next location, the ROI is not there.
And so one, you wouldn't spend the money.
And two, the banks are going to be like, hey, you're not making a return on investment.
Like, we're not going to continue to lend you money.
And so just the margins are that small.
But so for me, it doesn't hurt Keynes because you're going to eventually pass it on, right?
Wages go up, then you're going to raise the price of a chicken finger box, right?
It's just going to go up.
And you can't do that overnight.
You have to stage into it.
And so we just have a lot of resources, man.
I mean, I have a strategy for pricing.
The tough part is for small business that don't think about that pricing and then they don't want to do it.
The next thing you know, their margins go too small.
But look, it's going there.
$15 an hour, minimum wage.
We're going there.
I give advice to small business.
I'm like, you have to pass it on and we're going to go up.
But plan your pricing strategies, ease into it, and let your customers know, hey, look, it's labor prices.
And so it goes up.
So it doesn't really concern me.
It's a pricing strategy for small business.
Right, because you have such a breadth of information you can pull in, and you can look at it, and you can plan on a big scale.
But for someone who's just kind of like made their menu and it's very basic, and they're not thinking like, oh, well, if the cost of this goes up 50 cents, then I don't even make any money until probably six months down the line when they look at their books and like, what happened?
What happened?
That's exactly what happens.
And they don't, all these small business owners, they are so reluctant to take price increases.
They don't want their customers to pay.
I'm like, I know.
You have to, or you're going to be out of business.
Isn't that interesting about that, about that, about sometimes about people don't want to charge.
Like I get that way sometimes.
Like I don't want to make my tickets real expensive.
You know, I don't want to, even though sometimes I'll see other people like, holy smokes, you know, that guy's tickets that price.
That's crazy, you know?
But I'll get nervous about that.
I don't even know if it's nervous.
I don't want to bother.
I don't want to, I don't know what it is.
I know.
I think I'm going to take a crack at it.
You started from nothing and you appreciate every fan and it means something to you.
So you take it personal, right?
And so you generally hold back.
Same with small business, right?
They started from nothing.
They've scratched, they called, and now they have a living and they don't want to pass that on.
They're like, I don't want to do that to my customers.
I would imagine you're probably the same way.
And it's exact opposite in big corporate America, especially in restaurants.
Like those CFO types are like, they already have their pricing.
It's not a personal decision.
It's all a financial decision that they're doing.
It's different for people that care.
Is it interesting at a certain point as you grow and as things turn more from like manning a fryer to like business?
Like I noticed with business, the more business I start doing, the more business I have to do.
and so it's tough because you want to grow and you want to make things bigger and give other people opportunities.
But it also like it's it's tough to be like, how much is enough business?
You know, how much is enough revenue?
Like how much is enough?
You know, have there been moments in your world where you've kind of battled with that kind of stuff?
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, along the way.
And so what I had to set for myself was my personal goals and what ultimately I see happiness being for me.
Okay.
And so I set the vision for Raising Canes, and this is our vision statement, is to have locations all over the world, be known as the brand for quality chicken finger meals.
Okay.
Great crew, cool culture, and active community involvement.
Okay.
So that's me happiness.
Right.
And so look, I believe God made me good at this for a reason, and that's to be able to help people, right?
But when I set that vision, you think about it, it's not just I want to have locations all over the world.
There's nothing about, I want to make a bunch of money.
I know that all these things in there.
It's literally, wow, I went to Kane's, great food, then, oh, wow, friendly crew, cool culture.
And then they give money back and they work in the communities.
So that's guided me, right?
And so when I know I need to do that, then I'm going to grow it.
And so mine's an infinite vision.
Like I won't see it all over the world.
You know what I mean?
We're starting to grow, but I can't develop the whole world, you know?
I mean, by the time I'm, you know, God willing, I'll live a long life.
But, you know, those things are going.
So that's helped to guide me.
Right.
And so I passed up my financial goals really early on.
And so for me is when time hits, the grind hits and it always hits.
It kept me motivated when I didn't have the team around me that helped support me.
I always had people that worked hard and did, but I couldn't afford the teams I do now.
Right.
I knew I'd get to this point.
And look, by the grace of God, right now, I got really, really solid teams, very much more smarter than I am in the respective things they do.
So we're a stronger team.
And I feel like now, just now, and I'm pushing 50, I'm 49 now, almost 25 years in business, just now that I'm not like waking up every morning with that thing in my belly, but I'm hitting that vision.
So anyway, but different times it hit, I'm like, oh my God, Todd, you know, you're so stressed out.
You know, you haven't relaxed or you haven't done time with family and things like that.
And then I was like, but look, that vision puts me through.
Ultimately, it's going to really help people.
And you just got to stick with it and go.
And so that was just my personal thing.
And so that's paid off by setting real goals.
Like people need to set real goals and real vision because they need what you're working for.
Some people get beyond that.
And look, they don't want to grow like me all over the world.
They want to do certain things in all walks of life.
And then they get lost in, wait a minute, this isn't what I really wanted to do.
And it wasn't what I wanted to do to be happy.
Right.
So now they're bigger.
They're this, but they're not happy.
Right.
And that's kind of a heartbreaker at times.
You know, so I think people need to think strategically.
Where am I going?
You know?
It's interesting, man.
Yeah, I think about that sometimes.
Like, I think one of our original goals with podcasting was just to kind of share what we're thinking and feeling.
And then to, we started getting into like helping and like giving back.
We do some stuff for single moms and things like that where we try to, we haven't gotten it like incorporated yet so we could make it like a real nonprofit, you know, that arm of it.
But I certainly hope to at some point.
But sometimes I have to remember that that's what's kind of important, you know?
That leaving something positive, you know, it almost feels so stale to make money if there's not some positive part of it in a way.
There's got to be something greater than us to go do it, right?
And look, man, I'm at a point now where I can do a lot of things.
And with the scale of the business and do it, giving, you get so much more back, right?
And then it just gives your life purpose, right?
So giving comes another way.
It's not just charity giving money to these things.
It's inspiring people.
You know, it's someone saying, hey, I have this dream.
And like, look, this chicken finger guy did it.
Even commercial fish in Alaska reconstructed in the first place, but he's working hard and I can do it.
You know what I mean?
Those things are gifts that you can give people.
Look, how much we learn from people on the way.
You know what I mean?
People say, hey, you're a self-made man.
I'm like, no, I'm not, man.
I'm a collection of what I wanted to do, but help people on the way, right?
So giving back parts is really cool.
What were some, was there an item, so don't forget, was there a menu item you guys ever tried, like a banana pudding?
Was there something you guys ever came out with or tried or that was the closest one even early on?
Man, no, I just stuck with that one love, brother.
Same menu since day one, man.
And just knowing that, but that's been a big key to my success is, is just like I said, knowing that's what I do.
Stay focused.
Eat Clarina Nutting.
Man, I'd never even add a dessert, and I'm not anti-dessert.
I'm not anti-dessert.
It just would take focus off of what we're doing, you know?
And so, look, so here's the interesting thing.
In San Antonio airport, we went in there.
They have city mandates.
And so you had to have a healthy item.
You had to add breakfast.
And then they even wanted dessert when it was well-rounded.
So we added a chicken finger salad for them, right?
It started off 20% of sales of chicken finger salad.
And then it slowly drifted back.
Then it went rapid and became 1% of sales because people were like, once they tried the chicken fingers, it just shows you.
It's a non-item for me, right?
We had these great cookies.
All this stuff is.
People don't need dessert with Canes.
You finish that, man.
You're good to go.
But for those locations, you had to have that?
City mandates, right?
They just need, you know, the city council says, hey, we need healthy.
We need dessert.
We need these things to make it well-rounded.
Because sometimes it scares them to have a concept like mine going in because it's just that one thing, right?
We don't have that problem anymore now.
What dessert did y'all put in that airport?
It's cookies.
They have these great chocolate cookies, you know, and I could get the pucks.
And I've tried thousands of cookies and all that.
But in the end, people got in the beginning, but that meal is so flavorful and good.
That cookie couldn't match that chicken.
I'm not a cookie guy.
I couldn't make that same kind of dessert.
So look, everything on my menu has to be exceptional, right?
Freshly brewed tea.
Look, I source my tea from three different countries.
And like, I know the tea leaves that are coming in.
Freshly squeezed lemonade.
I can do it on crushed ice.
So it's like laser focus on these items being good.
And then keeping that, what's hard is when you scale.
Like I have so many different procurements across the country to get these products.
I'm constantly trying our food.
We have actually a big R ⁇ D culinary team just to make sure it stays consistent, right?
Wow.
Man, I was there at certain points.
Did you have to get help?
Like one thing I struggle with sometimes is asking for help, you know, or sourcing out work, you know, that sort of thing, like knowing that it's not going to be done how I want it to be done, that sort of thing, you know, some control issues, probably just things that I use as a child that would help me control my world, you know, but that is now as an adult aren't really as helpful, not to just like trust my employees that I trust.
You know, I don't have a bunch of employees, but just like, I noticed that even in all walks of my life, even in relationships, like to trust somebody to care about me, all that kind of stuff.
Did you notice in your business, were there moments where it was like, okay, I'm not doing, like, was it tough to go into that space?
Because obviously you can't do all this alone.
What was some of that experience like?
Was it hard for you as a person to do some of that?
Oh, man, it was so hard, right?
So I was a person frying everybody's chicken, you know, every piece of equipment, like the first location you used to go to, man, like I'd put in every board.
I mean, I like literally, that's my baby.
So I was used to doing all of it.
Was it by Serranos?
Were you by Serranos?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right there on that, right that corner.
Varsity, then Serranos, then Kane's, right?
Oh, yeah.
My ex-girlfriend used to work at Serranos, dude.
They had good margaritas.
Yeah, they had everything in there, dude.
Everything was good.
Good margaritas.
It's something else now, unfortunately.
It's gone.
But Chimes is still there.
Yeah, and they started a rooftop at Chimes.
Do you see that?
Oh, man.
I live a minute from there, man.
I still go up there and have beers all the time, man.
Especially this time of year when it's nice.
This is LSU campus for listeners that don't know.
This is all right off of the North Gates of LSU campus.
And it's nice being part of that community because you have all the Louis, you know, the breakfast spot.
Yeah, me and my mother went there a couple weeks ago, actually.
There you go.
And like, Frenchie's always in there cooking your food, and Clark has Highland coffees, and you have Chimes, you have the varsity, you have Raisin Cain's original mothership, and that whole community is just great.
I actually have the Raising Canes.
I lived in the apartment behind the first Kanes.
And so literally, that's where I started construction, did everything there.
That's why my dog was out there, Kane, and a friend said, you ought to name it Raising Canes after your dog.
Oh, nice.
All happened because it was right there.
It's nice being part of the community.
Yeah, you guys built that dog park too over there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lovely.
Yeah, dude.
I took my nephew there, so I didn't know where to take him.
We didn't even have a dog.
So I took him over there.
My brother let me watch him for a couple hours.
Dude, I took him over there.
He was literally tackling bassethounds out there.
It was unbelievable, man.
And then something nipped at him.
I think a little Ebu Shiba Inu or something nipped at him, and so we had to take him home.
But yeah, man, that kid could catch a ball in his mouth, dude.
No doubt, man.
My nephew's a wildcat.
Yeah, I'm proud of him.
I took him right there.
It's cool.
I love it.
You didn't have a dog where you're like, I'll bring you there.
There'll be dogs you can put.
Oh, I took him there, dude.
Yeah, he was really dangerous, man.
Really did an upgrade there.
But at the dog park, made with new sections.
It got used so much he couldn't even keep grass and stuff.
It's nice over there.
Thank you guys for doing that.
But just look back to your deal on the being able to do that.
So I did the control deal, and I'm extremely detailed, and this is my baby.
And so over time, it really hindered me.
It really did.
It hurt our growth.
It hurt our creative thinking because I was just overly, overly controlling.
And then I learned, it's kind of a maturity thing, right?
Over time, then you say, hey, you look at a series of getting screwed up and getting beat up and being tired and all those things along the way.
You're like, look, I need to bring in people.
And the biggest strength as you build your team is bring in people that are smarter than you.
You know, not a threat.
Bring in people that are good at their own respective ways.
And then you do it.
But it doesn't mean not being a detailed oriented.
It doesn't mean you're not into the details and you're not helping people.
It's like, oh, just delegate.
Like, just delegate.
What kind of word is that?
No, it's work with great leaders, but still be in the details, but it then helps to scale you.
So I had to learn that way.
And I tell you, it's the best of my workload.
Thinking about right now, 600 locations, we'll do 100 next year, but my workload's better than it ever has been in my balance of life because I've trusted my teams.
I'm into the details, right?
I'm still doing that, but I've trusted people to come in that are better than me and grow.
So that was a big, big maturity learning for me.
Man, it's hard.
It's hard.
Is it hard?
And then you screw up again, and then you run people off because they're like, I don't hear about the things.
And so I finally, and like I said, now I'm pushing 50. I've really kind of matured into that doing.
But it's interesting, interesting too, is like, and it's really important.
It's not details.
You should be in the details.
So people used to tell me the experts again, like, you just won't know what these things are going on.
You can't do these things when you get big, right?
Well, I'm bigger than all of them now.
Right.
And so, but like, I do know this.
Like my co-CEO, A.J. Kumaron, they said, you can't keep writing notes to people.
He wrote a thousand notes the other day, right?
He's like, I'm going to take my time and do the things because I'm going to scale.
You know, Edison Swest.
Swest is a boating company off of Louisiana.
Well, anyway, he built Aries West.
He built these boats, crew boats, all this stuff to support.
Huge company, multi-billion dollar company.
He even got down to the details in his business to know how much the bottled waters they were spending because there was just this rampant spending on bottled waters no one was looking at.
He said, look, it's not just the bottle of waters.
Our company makes billions of dollars, but that carries over to everything else, him staying in the details.
Like most successful people I know stay into the details, but they trust people.
Interesting balance.
It's hard.
It's hard, man.
It is hard.
And then you get your butt kicked so many times and finally you kind of settle into it and see the strength of it.
Almost out of exhaustion, huh?
Were you surprised whenever you started to trust people how things flourished?
Were you almost shocked?
Absolutely.
And it was also trial and error, me getting used to it.
And also trusted some people that weren't as great as they should have been.
And we falled back.
But look, it's just more mistakes and you learn from them.
I've gotten really good at understanding talented people.
But at Keynes, if you're going to work at Keynes, you can be the smartest person in the world and good at what you do.
If you don't have heart or align with the values of our company or this vision, you don't work out.
And it's really interesting.
So what I used to do to do serious interviews, which I thought was, is about five times as long now.
I mean, like for people's positions, like we spend so much more time because I don't want them to come in and not be successful.
This is these people's lives and it's as important as mine.
But taking that extra time, then it's people you can trust better, right?
And you go through that process.
What type of person does it take to run a store to be a partner in that business?
What type of, you know, you must know by now what type of person it takes.
Yeah.
First off, it takes someone that loves the food business, right?
It's interesting business.
It's a hard business.
You got to love it.
So look, on my sleeve at Raising Canes, it says fry cook cashier.
My business card says Founder, chairman, CEO, fry cook cashier.
It's like you got to be a fry cook cashier.
You got to love it.
I like working fry lines, I like working drive-through.
I love the pace of the business.
I like cooking, you know, all these things.
And so, you have to get someone that just loves that business.
You have to get somebody that's positive, like we talked about, that positive motivational management.
People that want to encourage people through because you get so much more with honey than triple or flies with honey than whatever else.
Ginegar, I think.
Scotch.
Yeah, or scotch.
Yeah, yeah.
So, anyway, so it's like you got to have someone that's aligned to those values and somebody that knows the purpose is bigger than them, right?
It's about helping people because when you're, someone does, you know, five people get sick or couldn't come in and you got to cover those shifts and do these things.
Also, there's sacrifice.
You know what I mean?
Like, we value family.
Like, you see me with my kids and so do this stuff.
But sometimes something's going wrong.
You have to miss that t-ball game.
Now, we want you to make the next one.
You know what I mean?
But it's that commitment to say, and to be a community leader.
You know, those are the things that resonate.
And man, we get people that are really great from other concepts.
They come into Keynes and it's like, this is my last stop, man.
I'm here forever.
And then we can partner and then they become like the Todd Graves in their community.
Wow.
So pretty cool.
That's interesting, man.
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Sean, we got a good question that came up.
What was that one you pulled up?
Yeah, there we go.
That's it.
Yep.
Yo, yo, it's Gio Palermo from Akron, Ohio.
What's up, Mr. Raising Kane?
I had a question for you today.
I'm a big fan of your establishment, your chicken establishment, your buns, your Coast Law, all the chicken, the fries.
Big fan of that.
But I was wondering, you know, you're in a very competitive market against a lot of good chicken establishments.
And I was wondering, who do you fear the most in the chicken game?
Do you fear, you know, the Zaxby's chicken, the Bojangs, the Chicky Filet, the Popeyes, the churches?
You know, let me know who are you scared of?
Who do you fear the most?
Gang Gang.
Who's that foul Voldemort, man?
Who's the Dar.
Yeah, who's that?
Who's the Kyle Morton?
Foul Valdemort.
So fortunately, we are very symbiotic with all those concepts, right?
So we're next to every Chick-fil-A.
In the trade areas we're doing business in, we're next to Chick-fil-A.
We're next to Popeyes.
We're next to Zaxby's.
We're next to all those.
And what we see is, since we've stayed true to our one love, our chicken finger meal, someone will go to Chick-fil-A on a Tuesday, but then on Thursday, they're coming to get our chicken finger meals, right?
They know what we're about.
They might go to Zaxby's has a really expanded menu, which works for them and is good.
So then someone might get a salad from there.
They might go somewhere else and get bone chicken, you know, at Popeyes, but we don't see like our competitors can run some kind of like special.
Like, you know, we got a bunch of competitors, but they might run a special on chicken fingers.
Like, we don't lose a cent of business.
They know they're coming for our quality, our sauce, our things.
So we do well with all the national players.
We actually should, we do better than most of them.
The thing that gets me is the young person that has the fire of Todd Graves going that wants to come and compete directly, right?
And, you know, says, hey, I'm going to go head to head with Keynes.
I'm going to do the same thing they do and do it.
And we get it all the time.
Now, what it does is, once again, that entrepreneur, since it's so personal to me and my team, you better get up early in the morning.
You better work late at night, man, because this is what we do.
This is my, it's part of my DNA, man.
It's a representation of my family.
So you better come with all your guns because I love young entrepreneurs and everybody takes ideas from everybody, right?
I mean, Guthrie started the whole phenomenon, but like, you better bring it or you're going to compete with Raising Canes because this is my world.
Dang, that's it, baby.
Now, have you ever thought about, do you guys go to like China?
Is there like an Asian, like, has there ever been like a, like a rice in Canes?
Or like, sometimes I remember, one time I remember being in, I think I was in Singapore, and the KFC, the colonel on the sign there, is an Asian colonel.
Like, I'd never thought about that before.
I'd always just thought it looked like the same kind of like basic Caucasian guy, right?
So has there been, do you guys, are you guys a global brand right now?
No, we're in the Middle East.
So I went to the Middle East first for a couple of reasons.
One partner, Muhammad Al-Shaya, we resonate with each other on values, right?
So he's like one of the large players there.
Does all kind of franchisees, puts the right people behind it.
He cares.
And we're aligned value-wise, right?
So some of his values are like getting the Middle Eastern people in the workforce, right?
Because oil's going to dry up one day, right?
You know what I mean?
Like working women.
Like these countries, man.
Like we had one of the first women drivers come through our drive-through in Saudi in the kingdom, man.
That felt good.
Wow.
Seeing what things change over time, right?
Like getting to play music in Saudi, like they're all no music.
You can't do these things.
It's like, let's play some instrumental Saudi music.
Like you got to have music when you're going somewhere.
Nothing crazy.
Let's don't play some wild music.
Instrumental music.
Now you can play this classic music in the restaurants.
Things like that.
So he and I were committed and we knew if there was a problem, we could work through it together.
So one was partner.
Then two, the Middle East.
They accept American concepts.
Like, don't have to change it.
Don't have to do other things because I haven't changed the menu my whole adult life, right?
So I wanted to go somewhere and prove that it's working well.
It's doing well.
We got like 30 in the whole area.
They're crazy about it.
we don't have the international celebrity, like everybody knows us, so we build the business.
And so, I'm real excited.
Next step, Asia.
And, like I said, I don't really want to change what I do.
I might consider something with the slaw because I'm not a slaw fan.
Like, people always like, do you like your slaw?
I'm like, no, man, I don't like the slaw.
That's why you can trade it out for extra toast or sauce.
But maybe we'll play with some things like their local produce.
They like slaw too, but maybe something like that.
But, like, I'm not changing what I do.
You know what I mean?
And if I had to change what I do to go in somewhere, then I just don't need to go there.
Right.
Do y'all cook the toast extra if people ask for it?
Do we do what now?
We all cook the toast extra if people ask for it?
Like, like longer?
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll give the customer what they want.
That drives me crazy because it's like you have underground menus and they get some different stuff, and it's like it slows down the line, but I'm not going to tell a customer no.
I want to give them what they want.
Yeah, I like a little bit extra.
Even if I get pancakes, I ask them to cook them.
Extra crispy.
Yeah, that's like a little more crisped out a little bit for some reason.
Sean, do we have another question that came in?
What up, Theo?
It's Nate from Iowa.
Just thought I'd call into the show, see if this works, you know.
Ask a question for Mr. Graves.
First of all, Theo, I love your show.
It's such a huge encouragement to me, man.
And Mr. Graves, I just want to ask you, when you're cooking it up in the kitchen, you know, at home, are there any songs that you like to listen to or artists you like to listen to?
Me personally, I like to listen to a little Frank Sinatra.
You know what I'm saying?
You ever think about getting into the spaghetti business?
Because I'm making some meatballs tonight, baby.
Oh, gang.
Oh, wow.
He's got some beautiful balls.
Anyway, thank you, Mr. Graves.
Thank you, Theo.
Gang.
Gang, bro.
Thank you for the question, man.
Yeah.
Do you like a little bit of background?
What do you enjoy, Todd?
Music-wise?
Yeah, do you mind?
Everything, man.
Everything.
I'm a big fan of music.
Love music.
And that's why in restaurants, when I started my restaurants, man, we're listening to music in the kitchen.
It's crazy.
People used to not do that.
And I'm like, we're listening to music.
I like it all, man.
So I like it.
I like my country.
I like my national country.
I like my old school red dirt country from Texas.
I love my boyfriend.
Clint Black.
Well, Clint Black really wouldn't go.
I guess I'd say more of a Robert O'Keein, you know, and all these young guys coming, Ko Wetzel and those guys, man.
They just got a good sound, and they're pure to the art.
I mean, I love the old grades.
Willie Nelson.
Willie Nelson's so good, man.
Oh, he's great.
And he likes Keynes, and he's such a nice guy.
My Chicken Finger Adventures, I got to meet all these really cool people.
Billy Givens last night I got to meet.
I mean, how cool.
And they're all Keynes fans, which is crazy.
We'll get into that later.
But I like that down to like a Dean Martin I play when I cook.
It just depends on the mood.
I like Travis Scott.
I mean, I like Post Malone.
I just like all forms of music.
And for me, it's staying relevant, right?
I got a young fan base, right?
A young, young fan base.
And so not becoming a dinosaur and just listening to your old stuff.
So it's good having kids and go through this.
But it's fun because I'm friends with these artists.
So like Travis Scott gave me these shoes, right?
But he grew up in Missouri City and he went to the Kanes and they were crazy about it.
And then he grows and he hears a story.
This guy started this and then they want to meet post.
He's like, I got to become friends.
And these are brilliant guys, but they're cool as hell, right?
And it's like, so listening to their music means more to me, right?
Right.
It's like you're staying in touch with something.
Yeah, you're staying in touch with something and you know they're out there working hard.
You know, they got good hearts.
You know, Snoop Dogg's a great friend.
And so he was in Baton Rouge years ago.
He used to drive through the original Kanes, right?
He was down there with Master P. Oh, yeah, dude.
Oh, man, that was like town when he came in.
It was great.
Bro, that was a crazy time.
So I remember I used to go to the rec center, right?
And Master P, this is before C Murder had gone to jail and Silk the Shocker.
They would be in there, and they used to fly, like NBA players would fly in and play at the LSU Rec Center.
I know.
I used to go, man, watch these guys ball.
They could play, dude.
It was crazy.
Yeah, and they would have, I remember they had these guys who would stand on the side of the court holding like their clothes they were going to wear after.
Literally, the guy's job was to stand there with his arms straight out.
It was almost like they were clothing racks, and they would have all their clothes draped over them that they were going to wear after they played.
And we'd go sit in there and watch them, yeah, just play in the rec scene.
It was a crazy time, wasn't it?
Man, it was great.
And so dog, Snoop Dogg would drive through Kane's afterwards, and they'd always have that extra box, and he's like, who's the box for?
For P, you know, because P always went back.
I guess he was the one changing doing.
He had a great business going then.
But it's nice to resonate with these guys.
And so like with Snoop, and he helped me out with the Wrestle Recovery episode in L.A. because he's got a big heart.
But like when we get together, we go to his compound.
We talk about kids.
We talk about what we're doing, charity, talking about friends.
Like people know as an entertainer, all these guys are like good heart, good soul.
And so this is what gives me hope for the future is these younger ones, too.
They got heart.
They're good people.
Just like you, you've got good values.
And these younger people look up to y'all, right?
They look up to you.
But when you keep showing these good values, then people go, okay, the people I think are coolest in this world are the ones that are working hard and they have good values, right?
I don't know many successful people that don't, that aren't good people, you know?
Jalen Ramsey's here in town.
He's a superstar in his deal, but I'm meeting with his dad later tonight.
He and his dad were having dinner, things like that.
One of the best backs.
And then on the other end, Michael Thomas, one of the best receivers of all times, right?
We talk about family stuff, good stuff.
We have a good time too now.
You know what I mean?
But it's all about that stuff.
And so it makes me feel good about our country because when you have, I like supporting celebrities and their kind of charity because it gets amplified.
And then that means where people say, if these superstars have this humility and they got these values, then I want to be, I want to be like them, right?
Role models, just like you.
You will not believe your influence that goes through to other people and the things you're doing.
Just like our man Nate just said, he really appreciates you and an inspiration to him.
And I think all of us, whether you're Chicken Finger famous or in your world, we need to be good examples.
These things that matter, man.
So these things that don't matter, they don't matter in those people's lives.
We need inspiration.
Yeah, especially these days, it's tough because a lot of mainstream media seems like it battles against that.
And that could just be not even true.
I mean, but it seems like there's a lot of dark arts that are more out there at play.
So it almost seems like a time better to kind of lean into the good and just try our best.
More than ever right now.
Lean into the good.
Lean into the positive.
Support each other.
Be cool to each other.
You're like me.
You've got friends from all walks of life, right?
We're doing these things.
Let's don't let People think that we don't care.
We got a long way to go as a society, but like pitting people against each other and making sensationalism out of it, making money off people being against each other, wrong mood for our country.
Wrong move.
It's going to get so bad that they don't have to cycle back because people are stuck.
They're not listening as much to the negative and the sensationalism.
They're starting to figure it out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's pretty cool to see.
So when you look to your horizon of life, was there a moment where you realized, okay, I can not take a break, but I've achieved, I've achieved.
I think there's a thing inside of entrepreneurs.
Like some girl asked me the other day, she goes, how is your life like now?
You know, you kind of have some of the things that you want or you've achieved some of your successes, some of your goals.
And I was like, man, it's not really that different.
The gas pedal that's always kind of had me be like, I want to do stuff has never really, the foot never really comes off it, I don't think.
It's always kind of this now what kind of thing.
Like not always in a bigger way, but now what, maybe in a more important way or now what in more of a human way.
You know, it might have has evolved some.
But was there a moment where you kind of realized, okay, you know, a little bit.
Yeah, yeah.
So financially, right?
So we hit on this earlier, but like growing it, meeting my wife, then go through now I got kids.
I'm highly leveraged.
I want them to go and have things.
Now, I'm not talking Rolls-Royces and stuff, but like education, decent house, you know, things like this.
And so that was a big one because I was levering the business too much.
And the big lesson to me is I had 28 locations when Hurricane Katrina hit, all South Louisiana.
Okay, mostly South Louisiana.
21 to 28 of those went down.
I had levered the business.
What I was doing is banking back then was a lot more lenient.
And what I would do is I'd go into community, find a community bank, then I'd have a sub-debt investor, meaning subordinated debt to the bank.
I could go raise $100,000, $200,000 and give them a subordinated note to the bank.
It means the bank gets their money first, but I'm going to pay you a 15% return.
This is just kind of my entrepreneurial financing, what I did.
And the banks would actually kind of use that as equity, saying, look, you got $200,000.
It's like an equity thing.
Terrible thing.
You're just totally leveraging yourself.
Yeah, it's a lot.
It's a lot.
But I was able to do all these locations and ding, ding, ding, and I didn't want to sell.
I didn't went private equity partners.
I wanted to own it and control it.
And when it went down, so like our restaurants had opened a restaurant.
So first paycheck to crew members is two weeks.
I got sales coming in, pay the vendors 30 days, right?
Pay rent in 30 days.
So I was creating cash, right?
Like I didn't have to do my expenses.
Sales are coming in.
So when I kept opening these locations, I kept creating cash for the company and kept growing.
Highly levered it.
Totally stupid, by the way, because obviously Katrina comes in.
You got cash flow stops and you're like, whoa.
Like I almost just screwed up the whole thing, man.
I mean, and I would have bounced back and came back, but it wouldn't be what we are today.
Wow.
But we were able to rally our troops.
We were the first ones to open.
Our business survived and did well, but I'll never forget that deal.
And then it stayed with me, that ache in my belly like, because I'm putting everything towards Keynes.
Everything's leveraged.
I'm in monstrous debt.
And I just didn't have that nest egg for my family.
You know, what if something happened to me?
You know what I mean?
What happened to mom or whatever?
Especially in the last name's Graves.
You're freaking halfway there.
You're already halfway there, right?
The Reaper's already freaking, you know, he's already got a tattoo on you.
Yeah.
So that felt good when I was able to put money aside and do that and put it away.
And so that was like a, but with that vision and what I want to do, like to me is I keep working hard for that vision because I know it's my purpose.
Right.
Right.
And I believe with people like us, okay, like when you create and do, you're never going to stop creating and doing because it's part of what you are.
It's part of your DNA.
And I do, I do firmly believe this.
If you're not going ahead, it doesn't need to be this, but if you're not moving forward on things, if you're not creating, if you're not working, you're not doing things, then you're sliding behind.
There's no coast.
Like in all my life's experience is you always got to kind of do, if we're this way, whether it's this or this, we have to keep going.
Like if you stop, you slip back.
And look at people, which I think is retirement.
You know, if some people want to retire, I think that's when they're, hey, I'm going to go fishing more.
I'm going to do all those things.
But if you're staying in the game, you're always going to go.
Never being satisfied.
And that's a terrible saying, right?
But like always wanting more is a better way.
And that's how you said it is, is a good thing because you want to push yourself.
If you're satisfied and you say, hey, this is perfect.
This is the thing we've achieved it.
You know, like the second you think you made it is a time to be showing the door, right?
You know, you got to push and do because you don't want to go back and you want to keep creating and doing good things and it keeps you sharp and it keeps you going.
But it's important to celebrate your successes.
And what we won't do is we'll do all these great things with our business, but we won't stop and say, hey, let's celebrate.
I mean, shit, it's for an hour.
I feel like Nick Saban after a damn Alabama wins again.
He's like, we're starting recruiting in the morning, but he's a champ.
And I respect the heck out of him, you know, but I'm like, we have to celebrate.
So celebrating successes, I think, is important, even if it's just one night.
You're right, man.
Somebody told me that the other day.
He said, man, sometimes you got to look.
You always want to do more for other people and want to make people feel good.
And you don't even look and realize you're doing that.
And then it makes it gives you winning your sales, right?
If you can realize that, then you'll go do more.
Yeah.
You know, I thought it was really interesting how you said where your vision meets your vision and purpose and how they kind of can interchange and how I think it'd be really interesting to just kind of have that in people's minds and hearts like as almost like a chart or something where it's like, yeah, where your vision and your purpose, because those are two different things, but they're very, they're similar, but they're, one is almost more of a divine and one is almost more of a will.
And I think it's interesting.
That's well, well said.
If you can tangle those up, almost braid them in a way.
Yeah.
I braid them just by I know what my purpose is and the vision with the business is going to get us there.
Right.
Then setting goals, right?
So Keynes is going to be 25 in August and they're like, how do you want to celebrate?
I want to do $25 million for the communities we do business in.
You turn 50 in February.
I want to do $50 million back in the business.
But setting those personal goals too, then you get a plan behind it.
What can we do with these things?
So that's that vision strategy.
The will, other side, the purpose is more divine.
Why are you here?
What is your purpose?
Yeah, and to ask ourselves that and answer it honestly to ourselves too, you know?
I think sometimes it can be scary even to hear what the answer is.
It can seem like hard work.
But I think, yeah, once you.
Which is scary too because when you lock into something and you do it, it becomes your life work.
You know what I mean?
Like, I better make a good decision.
This is what it is my purpose because, look, there's no backing out of that.
You know, I want to make promises to people.
What's your daily routine like, Todd?
And then we'll get you on your way here.
Oh, man.
It's kind of everywhere like a, are you like a this, you know?
It's a little both.
So we have, so being in the details of my business, there's so many different committees we have set up, right?
So like I approve every location.
I was looking at some in Nashville earlier today.
Every design of every restaurant, every local cultural graphic that goes into the restaurants.
Now, I have incredible people and teams.
They pull it all together.
I get to review, maybe make a couple of points on things.
But then it goes to HR issues.
We call it crew resources.
I created a division called Kane's Love.
It's about appreciating, recognizing, respecting, rewarding crew members.
On and on and on.
Purchasing, supply chain, culinary, trying the chicken.
I mean, you name it.
It's every part of the business.
Financials, reviews, all that stuff.
So we have regular committee meetings set up because there's a lot of people that come in and do it.
I can work my schedule around that.
Then it's getting out to the markets, seeing my people, seeing you personally do those things, you know, is important.
They're out in the pandemic.
I mean, I didn't stop.
I went to our markets.
I went and saw our people.
They're in our restaurants working.
So I need to get out and about.
A lot of things, too, is going to see some of these famous Kaniacs too, seeing them.
I appreciate them, right?
So they like to spend time, but then they also, they'll go back and post, you know, and like, I appreciate that, right?
They post eating canes, things like that.
So I want to tell you, look, I appreciate that.
You know, 100 million people saw that or whatever, crazy stuff like that.
So it's kind of that whole crazy mix, you know what I mean?
Catch my son's baseball games, do fun stuff with my daughter and stuff like that, and just kind of keep it going.
I think, you know, entrepreneurs have a high energy level, so you're able to do a lot of capacity.
But that's just kind of how I roll every week.
I'll get my mom asked me, where are you going next week?
I'm like, I don't even want to think about it.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's almost too much sometimes when you rattle up, when you really stack the future onto today, you know, it can get to be a lot.
Sean, any other question that you wanted to get answered at other videos?
Okay, cool, man.
Tagos, thank you so much, man, for coming in today.
Oh, one last question I had.
So Jimmy John, before whenever he was in, he talked about sometimes how time went on with work that one of the things that ended up leading to him not wanting to sell, but one of the things that wasn't as much joy was that a lot of, there became like a lot of lawsuits and legal issues the bigger his company got.
Is that, do you notice that you have to spend more time, like the bigger you get, the more time you have to spend almost doing stuff like that?
Not fun stuff.
Yeah, the not fun stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, look, work's work, and sometimes it's a grind, but when you have these litigious lawsuits that come, that's not real.
Look, look, we screw up, always back us, but like setups and these things come in that are not true.
And you got to spend the time, snakes, and you got to spend your time and your money, and you have to go back and defend this stuff.
And you're really defending your honor, your values, and your things.
And it's like, I have a crew that go, we're not this way, we're not this.
All the time.
The bigger you get, the bigger target you are.
The system is set up to go in and do that and to settle.
So it just comes constantly.
Man, that's the stuff that just like, it just takes it out of you.
And you know what?
But being AJ, my co-CEO, say, look, look, we have to be stronger than them.
We're not going to let that hurt the good things we're doing for people is.
And you just got to dig deep and say, if you're coming, we're coming right back at you.
And we're not an easy target.
And you just have to part of the business, unfortunately.
Yeah.
No, I like the way that you think about handling that, though.
Yeah, it's like you just have to rise above it.
You just have to believe in what your purpose is, what your goal is.
Yeah, man.
And that what you're doing is putting more good out there than these other systems that are kind of set up, not really to, that are just set up for financial gain, really.
That's right.
And then you got to have a good legal team and you tell them, go right back at them and do it.
But anyway, unfortunately, that kind of goes with the territory.
We can't let them get us down.
We're just going to keep doing it.
We're going to keep creating good things for people.
Look, for me, it's just anybody in life, whatever you do, and we were talking a lot about entrepreneurship and all this big stuff and all this stuff is, but whether you're a teacher, whether you're a welder, whether you're whatever you're doing in life, you matter and you matter to people and you're an example to people.
My high school coach and my high school teachers are like some of my biggest heroes to today, right?
They influenced me in such a way and they cared.
You know what I mean?
It doesn't matter what you do, but doing it and saying, let's bleed the world in a better place.
Everybody thinks that way rather than get ahead.
And I really think that's what America's all about.
I think we are that way.
I think we are.
But people remembering that and keeping that, whatever you do, just do it good for other people, too.
Amen.
Lean into the good.
Todd Graves, thank you so much for joining us, man.
And, Theo, this was a blast.
I had a great time.
This is cool.
Yeah.
Thanks for introducing me to your son.
It was a pleasure to meet him.
And I'll look forward to getting one of the best chicken finger meals here soon.
I might be outside in front of your pad here.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Okay.
I got the truck out here right here for you.
I wanted to have it hot and fresh after we got to have a good talk.
Okay.
Let's go have some chicken.
That sounds good.
Thanks, Todd.
Thank you, man.
Now, I'm just floating on the breeze.
And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind.
I found I can feel it in my bones.
But it's gonna take a little time for me to sell that pocket break and let myself alone shine.
Find that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I will sing it just for you And I will sing it for you
I've been moving way too fast on the runaway train with a heavy load of past In these wheels that I've been riding on, their walls so thin that they're damn near gone.
I guess how they just work built the land.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
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