The Josh Innes Show - Zaxby's vs. Canes

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

I just read that Zaxby's is opening up many new locations throughout this year. I've never been a fan and I've been a staunch supporter of Raising Cane's. That said, the quality has taken a massive hit lately. Am I a chicken finger free agent? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. Headline reads, Zaxby's plans to open more than 50 new locations in 2025. Here's where. First off, Zaxby's, which is a chicken finger place.

Zaxby's primary market is the southeast. You'll see places in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi. They have some in Louisiana as well. The company said in a June 12th email, it has opened 16 new locations so far in 2025, including the most recent new state entry in Nevada. And now they're going to be opening more new locations in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, and more. You're going to start getting more, again, they're still mostly throughout the Southeast. But still, I bring this up

because, as you know, I am from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. At least that's where I lived the majority of my adolescence and I love it and I consider it home. Those are my people and I love the place. Like it like I'll tell you like people can judge Louisiana all they want. It's got its warts, but like I was looking at houses to rent there when I was thinking that there was a chance I'd be moving back to Baton Rouge and like the house is there that you can get for like seventeen, eighteen

hundred bucks a month are just mansions versus like I'm I'm at twenty-five hundred bucks a month in this house. I'm in in Saint Louis right now and it's fine. It's in a really pretty neighborhood, but this house is not a great house by any means and the house is in Louisiana. house by any means and the houses in Louisiana, you can get a lot of really nice ones out in the suburbs for seven $800 a month less than this one and some of the other places I've been looking and some of these you

know cities that I might end up moving to that are kind of older cities like you're spending the same money you'd spend on a place in Baton Rouge and these places are half the size. They're old like it's crazy Louisiana and Texas. They do housing right like up in Pennsylvania like up in Philly. You can find some nice houses, but it is like an old house area like you'll get new town houses that are 9 billion dollars, but for the most part

the Philly area has a lot of old houses. We lived in an old house when we lived in Manny Yonk in Philadelphia. These other places I've been looking at for a place that I might potentially get a job, a lot of old houses, a lot of old places. You go to Houston and you can go out to Katy. This is what irks me. I'll look at a house that's out in Katy and it'll be $1,700- $1,800 a month and it's like 2000 square feet, you know, big house, four rooms, big yard, fenced in deck patio, all that shit. Like it is crazy

just the difference in bang for your buck. Like if you just had a choice, like a blank choice to go live wherever you wanted, like and you know, like money is still an option. It's not like you just won the lottery and won $5 billion or something. So you want to just go and you can get a good job. The job will pay you the same amount, no matter what place you go. So let's like say you're in whatever field, you're in medicine, you're a nurse, whatever, and the job will pay you the exact same in this hypothetical. It will pay you the same any place you go. And it's not a huge sum, like say it's 70, 80 grand, 60

grand, something like that, like not an amazing sum of money, but you know enough to live. I don't know why you wouldn't choose living in one of these suburbs of Houston or Austin or Dallas, like one of these San Antonio, one of these Texas places where you can just get a lot more bang for your buck. Weather wise, it's gonna be hot as shit. So you might look at weather and go, well, I'd rather go somewhere where I'm gonna have a milder climate and I would totally get that. But if you could just pick a place to

live, you're gonna make the same amount of money and be the same level of happy from that regard no matter where it is. The houses in places like Louisiana, like newer builds in Louisiana, Texas, places like that, Georgia are just phenomenal like the South is just loaded with great subdivisions filled with beautiful new homes and then you go around to some places in the Northeast and the Midwest and it's just not the same. You don't like I was shocked when I moved here and I just didn't

see as many neighborhoods that were just loaded with beautiful brand new homes and not like mansions houses that you know people can afford just weird like and I guess I get that because I've lived in a lot of places. Basically the only part of the country I haven't lived in is I guess west of Texas right so I haven't lived over and you know the the west coast or in the mountains or anything like that so I have no clue of the deserts but or the northwest But in all the places I've

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But I bring up Zaxby's when I saw that because and I bring up Baton Rouge and all that I know that I go off on these diatribes. I bring that up because I'm a big Canes guy. Canes was born in Baton Rouge, North Gates of LSU. That's the Mecca. That's the OG Canes and back in my day when you were a kid, you'd go to the LSU basketball game and if LSU made like six or seven threes in the game, I think it was. You would get a buy one get one free box and a box back then was only probably like 6 bucks, 7 bucks. Now a damn box

cost you 91011 bucks, but back in the day you get a box for like seven bucks and you get four. Actually the box maybe had five tenders at the time. I don't remember, but you'd get these beautiful big tenders and the fries were hot and crispy and the Texas toast was the perfect level of crispiness and soft and then of course there was the coleslaw which I never eat. I get no slaw extra toast. You get a Coke and you'd sit there and you'd show them your ticket

stub that showed you were at the game that LSU hit seven threes and then your buddy would eat for free. And life was fucking awesome. And it was fantastic. The first time I ever ate canes was like a revelation to me. I was with my college girlfriend. She's like, you ever been to Raising Canes? I'm like, no, not really. I haven't. So she says, let's go. And then we go into the original Cane's location that's still there. I'm sure they've remodeled it some, but the OG

first opened by brilliant man billionaire, probably now Todd Graves, at least certainly 100 millionaire. And we were eating this and like it just hits me and dip it in the Cane's sauce. And normally I'm not someone that even likes those kind of sauces. Like I like barbecue and shit like that. But usually like a mayonnaise based sauce, I'd be like, I dip it in there, it hits my lips and it's fucking phenomenal.

And the fries are salty and crispy and the toast is great. And the Soti Papa is just like, like the Coke at Cane's fantastic. Like most people will tell you that the best Coke you're gonna get get is at McDonald's and you're probably right. Like I think Chick-fil-A does a bad job with it. I think McDonald's is great, but what sets Canes apart is also the

ice. Like the ice makes it as well. It's the perfect kind of little ice. It's amazing. Then Canes over the years started to blow up. Like it'd be cool when I'd leave like in Houston, they had a couple of Canes when I lived there the first time, but they weren't all close to my house, you'd have to go down like, like Westheimer all the way down to like fucking Highway six and sugar land to go to a raise in canes like there weren't that many of them. And then when I lived up in Philadelphia, they didn't have

them. So when I flew into like St. Louis, the first thing you do is you go to the mall, the mall used to have like the canes love canes. But in the last thing you do is you go to the mall. The mall used to have like the Canes. Love Canes. But in the last 10-12 years, Canes has blown up to the point where now it's basically everywhere. And what happens if you've watched the Founder movie, the McDonald's movie, sometimes quality control takes a hit whenever you expand mass expansion. What I'm experiencing with Canes, and this makes me

sad, is that the quality of the attendees, the quality of the service, the service is never bad. One thing about Canes, I'll say is this, it's not like Chick-fil-A level of service where like they put these people through like the most, like I don't know what they do to them, but they turn them into Stepford wives when they work at the fucking Chick-fil-A. Like Chick-fil-A just turns them into service robots and like they never forget to say my pleasure.

Like I've never gone through like the training of what they have to do but these people never forget to say my pleasure. So if you're on the speaker with like even if you go through the drive-thru and you talk to the little person that's in like the little minion suit because it's raining and you're like I'll get the grilled chicken sandwich, whatever. Thank you, my pleasure. You go through the drive-through and have to talk to the speaker.

Your order will be such and such. All right, thank you. My pleasure. They never. Like, it's almost like when you go to Dairy Queen, and they're supposed to flip the cup over to show you that the ice cream's not coming out, like that's part of the show. It's almost like they should get docked pay

if they don't say my pleasure. And they all say my pleasure not you're welcome Not you bet not sure thing. It is my pleasure and they say it all the time Chick-fil-a is elite as elite as chick-fil-a is like burger king and all those are not like they just suck And somewhere in the middle, but like slightly north of the middle is canes canes does a pretty good job The nice people usually they usually like young college and high school kids. They do a good job. Chipotle does not, but like Chick-fil-A does and Canes does. But the food has started to really suffer. Like

the tendies aren't very good and the the hard part, and I'm not explaining to you things you may not know or you probably do know but if you like if you go to McDonald's in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, you want that McDonald's to taste exactly like the one you had in Memphis, Tennessee or Des Moines, Iowa, right? It has to do that the number of times you go somewhere like Canes particularly and the chicken is completely different in terms of the breading in terms of

the crunchiness like someone fucked up some some nuggets the other day over at Chick-fil-A. They tasted like Tyson chicken nuggets that you would get out of the bag and I'm like what the fuck is this like people expect consistency what I'm getting out of Cane's now when I go to Cane's is the consistency isn't there anymore. Like you might go to a place where the toast is fantastic. You might go to another place where it's really kind of chewy and cold. The fries might

be soggy. The tenders, the biggest issue is that the tenders which used to be huge and glorious and glamorous are now small. Like you might get one of your four is like the size of your thumb. Then one might be the large one. Like if like I am not anti canes and every now and then I'm craving it and I'm like I'll go get it but then I'm never happy after I do because it's just not good anymore. Then like I start exploring new chicken tenders that I'd like to try like I tried some chicken tender place

in the mall and it was fucking great. You know what's a really great chicken tender place is slim mall and it was fucking great. You know, it's a really great chicken tender place is Slim Chickens and I don't know if it's still open and there was one that was open in Houston in the um, what's the name? Katie? The hell was that one? Cypress? It was in Cypress. I think there was a Slim Chickens and it's great and their barbecue sauce is good. Like what's hurting Canes is Canes has one sauce option. They've never really changed anything on the

menu, which has worked for them for a while, but there's no spicy options. It's kind of bland, which I can work with. However, if you're going to serve me tiny little chicken tenders that aren't good anymore, I can't look past the other shit. So I'm basically a chicken tender free agent. I don't like the chicken tenders at Chick-fil-A because they taste like pickles. I don't need my fucking chicken brined in pickle juice because I don't like pickles. So I don't like the chicken tenders at Chick-fil-A because they taste like pickles. I don't need my fucking chicken brined in pickle juice because I don't like pickles. So I don't

like those. The Nuggies are great, but I need to find a new regular chicken tendee location. And Slim Chickens is at this point the best I've had. I have plenty of sauce options. The fries are good. Now I want to go to Slim Chickens. Fuck. But yeah, it's so sad. So then when I read that story about Zaxby's, I used to be like a staunch like, Oh fuck Zaxby's, we're at Kane's house. They're from Baton Rouge. And now I'm just kind of like, I don't know that I like it all that much anymore. Quality control has taken a hit with

all these new locations. Anyway, more to come.