This Past Weekend - E340 Raising Cane's Founder Todd Graves

Episode Date: May 18, 2021

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 Restaurant Recovery: https://www.discoveryplus.com/show/restaurant-recovery Music “Shine” - Bishop Gunnhttp://bit.ly/Shine_BishopGunn​ Support our Sponsors Marvel's M.O.D.O.K on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/welcomeBetterhelp: https://betterhelp.com/theo Liquid Death: https://liquiddeath.com  New Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://theovonstore.com​ Podcastville mugs and digital prints available now at https://theovon.pixels.com Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to [e-mail]. Hit the Hotline [phone] Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: http://bit.ly/TPW_VideoHotline Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiEKV_MOhwZ7OEcgFyLKilw Producer: Nick Davis https://instagram.com/realnickdavis Producer: Sean Dugan https://www.instagram.com/SeanDugan/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 Gray 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 uh I uh so your business now so Raising Canes it's a chicken

finger company yeah and how big is the business now now we're pushing 600 locations in almost 25 years of business so it blows me away we're about to start cranking about 100 a year good locations man so 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 prove every site every one yeah um 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 Raising Baton Rouge oh nice where'd you go high school at yeah well 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 um yeah I saw your son came out here with you right now yeah yeah he's he's exams later in the week and so he had some time off so I like to bring him uh 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 ace you know just like it's great his sister's older sister twos at LSU and uh good student too great they like to have a good time but they keep it uh they keep it good and that so it's been easy raising them yeah yeah yeah um was it did you start being a dad like in the middle uh we must have started being a dad in the middle of your company growing yeah yeah you know so Cain's 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 North Gates LSU yeah I think I went in there man uh 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's actually you gotta get that chicken man so that's good late night man even hung over on Sunday man it's uh that's our bread and butter yeah yeah it was good man uh yeah so I guess so then take me through that so like um 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 it was college

business planning class so 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 the students I wanted to hire students because I knew the work environment they wanted uh I knew college kids would work hard man they'll bust their ass but they need some somebody that cares about them let's listen some fun music you know what's what'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's how it's one of the first restaurants that actually had music going on

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 in there baby been in there yeah you know but that's fuel right yeah no that's exciting especially so so if you get that though do you feel like like where you guys deterred was the business because you were the partner at that point yep you have a partner I did back then he sold out after the second one he just wasn't a he wasn't a fry cook cashier didn't make him happy you know but I love working drop throughs I like working fry lines you know it's what I love which is important I tell these students now I'm like whatever you go into

making sure it's something you like to do you're passionate about because if not you won't be successful at it right okay love what you do works comes down to a grind but if you love it then you're always happy doing it he 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 it wasn't a hard grader yeah 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 like um 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 business men you know needed to look the parts bought a cheap suit right oh yeah bought a briefcase from like office depot the one with a little uh brass locks on it you know like to look official right I'd go with like I like a little some of the locks you did never even open 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 everyone I'm like hey man you know you might want to work in the industry for 10 years you might want to do this that any other we're 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 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 in 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 and it's not where your industry is going but I knew doing one thing and doing 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 Popeyes 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 um was there anything that was serving just that chicken finger yeah Guthrie's they had started Guthrie's chicken finger should start it off in Auburn years years before they did uh University of Georgia they did Florida State and so the model was out there just wasn't in Louisiana right and so it's 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 in our business biggest business was the late night business to start off with and then

went into the days so I stayed 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 gonna I'm not gonna shut down I'm not gonna stop I'm never gonna 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 boiler maker what is it well you say like when they 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 that refinery come back as soon as possible because it will be 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 the 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 to ore 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 of two years because after my refinery step 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 even work 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 would come and take pictures of all the kids swimming and stuff every day and his name was wild bill right so finally wild bill well one day I'm like hey are we ever gonna see those pictures from wild bill and they're like who's wild bill like the photographer like we don't have a photographer it was just some guy some random dudes I'm wild bill the photographer yeah taking pictures of kids swimming which was a little not not ideal so wild bills can be interesting yeah it can be this guy was a wild ass and uh he he earned his nickname but he said look you don't you don't mind working hard and you're trying to raise money for this chicken finger dream these bullet makers were incredibly

encouraging to me man like man you're gonna 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 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 just encouraging 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 don't come back but like I'm like no this is what I want to do those bullet makers were the most encouraging people I've 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 they're like

yeah I hear for your chicken fingers and uh anyway and so wild bill said look you can you can cut it go work go up to Knackneck Alaska and get a job in Bristol Bay gill netting for sockeye 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 tent city took a month to get on a boat talking to captain into it spent that month that summer commercial fishing in Alaska is crazy what um so what was that time like up there like are the what are you working with like a lot of in you with you you're working with like a lot of just local people like that are kind of hiding out because it's almost like the like the the

icy Key West I feel like Alaska is almost that strange kind of like place where people can go to kind of get like really get away yeah yeah it's a mix so anyway it's an innuents hold the permits right 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 people just worked 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 the same salmon are born on the stream right they swim out to the ocean there's beautiful silver fish all of them have a

cycle between four and like seven years okay they know to come back to the original river up the same river they spawn and they die and it's the cycles crazy yeah so when they're coming in during the summer man it's droves of fish and so 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 percent of it paying top dollar oh yeah and you can't keep going out into the ocean intercept these fish right you have a little rand 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 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 ran boats boats rammed uh so my partner went out with me then his boat ram his captain rammed another boat and sunk it out there man 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 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 the back of this 36 foot boat national geographic is going over to film the madness medical helicopters are taking people out you're here in 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 gonna you're gonna you're gonna crash you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna either get hit or you're gonna sink when 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 champion championship or something like yeah I can't even imagine people jockeying and the the hours that you're on those boats like what's that kind of time like the hours that you're on those you just stay out and so like you know time's money so if you have to go into the dock you know I mean you're missing money so they have tender boats that you drop your fish off too so you

just live out there you're staying on the boat oh so you're out there now the and then the little boats come by and you guys fill and you guys will just fill them up with fish fill them up fish yeah you take the tender boat take your nets off boom put it back in and you go right back at it now is there any drug use or anything like that on the boats because I could imagine some people would be at a rolled up or something during it you know back then you know at a rolled hadn't hit it hit it's stride you know so you just 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 in the society a little bit because you're just like you have to just constantly work then it gets cold and it gets that you get

beat up and then like I came back I was kind of like man I don't know I don't know if I fit in just that a couple weeks later I got soft again you know yeah but uh 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 yeah you're doing a job but you're also have to have this internal kind of thing going on where you were 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 use sports as an example right and so just playing something like football right well what's on the football team I was I mean look I went to 2a private school so I've been like like we're not like 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 a leader so I could play receiver or running back or whatever but I want to be quarterback because I want to demand the offensive 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 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 he was like get 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 want 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 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 you yell at you you know and it's negative reinforcement doesn't work in my business if you go through raising can you see a much a 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 tell the 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 comes down to its heart it's hard to work long shifts in a restaurant right yeah 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 in my canes cup for you today you want to do that with me bro and I don't know 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 but uh it's good that'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 you too well cheers brother cheers um yeah let's get to this question right here here we go hey Todd hate the uh just wanted to come and ask a quick question I'm out of raising cane 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 from raising canes would it be your first store would it be somewhere else would it be your time before as like a boiler maker sockeye salmon fishing uh what you got gang gang boom boom gang baby that's a good question and and so yeah do you have a favorite moment you

have and there could be many but you have one that kind of stands out to your 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 you know we just ask for any for submissions of thoughts or questions so that you know like uh it's just

interesting that that's what someone would say yeah you know 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 be 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 is now having we 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 unfortunate 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 like as urgency one you'd like to cite even to kind of like well so like so so here's a good example so battlers has a big buddy program right and so it was the first thing got involved with their offices 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 these kids that just don't have the same opportunities I didn't really do what now gay who you're gay back she's 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 did 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 years my crew is as bright me as a top hundred CEO in the country it's this glass door deal at all categories 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 right that their leader treats them right and does that man you talk about it what an honor right that's amazing man congratulations well this is quite an honor where does it come from so like uh what was your dad like when you were young yeah just uh he was just uh 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 it's like like you met Charlie earlier he's a good young man and you can tell he just has a good uh he's a bit 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 we they've grown up they've always had their round money and nice things and this amazing stuff like he gets to come here with you and he meets all the we went from Cain Brown's today with a Cain's food truck he gets to meet all these people oh cool yeah Cain was on a couple of months ago that's what a great dude but you know I mean like but but he gets it like hey and so what I'm trying to teach these kids is we're in a great position yeah and for us we need to help other people out hey man yeah you know it's interesting I find um I five five it's tough

because like 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 yeah 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 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 as my life has gotten bigger in the past couple years it's like so figuring

that out for myself has been kind of tough you know because yeah I'd 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 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 it because man you know how it goes stacked and you're a detailed guy like me and you have to all the details and we need to be driving a hating efficiency of time it's like we're getting to be cranking so the people as close see kind of see the other time it's like zip zip zip zip zip and look we're supposed to be on this in 10 minutes but they understand and then I'll tell them look sorry just stressed 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 are 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 gonna go in and tell them anything negative now I'll talk to the district manager later and people and say hey we probably need to get this better and I saw this but motivational but I'm the same way around your tight group and they just know you and they love

you and they know you got all the pressure on you you know I think it's hard for that to that to leave but uh we'll figure it out someday yeah all right I guess I should just do a better job sometimes I communicate with people when I am stressed to say hey look I'm I'm not I'm not 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 that's a lot to have but yeah them understanding hey I'm tired I didn't sleep last night hey I'm gonna be stressed right now just 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 and the batter's been all chewed off I feel like sometimes man that's for sure um we got a question right here that came in for you man what up Todd what up Theo this is uh Barrett from Salford Louisiana what's up brother first of all Theo I want to say it's real fucked up that you announced the tour schedule and there's no dates in Louisiana I think you big time now bouncing back and forth between LA and Nashville and you forgot where you came from okay show some love man I will give us some shows Alexandria I'm coming Alexandria Todd I want to say personally thank you so much for opening up the the cane store here in Salford right after the hurricanes whenever our area was affected by Hurricane Laura and here Hurricane Delta you

are one of the first companies if not the first company that was you know serving food giving people jobs like giving people stuff to eat man like just giving us some semblance of 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 I mean you got people like like Chick-fil-A they got all the sauces you're gonna start messing with some new sauces you're gonna start doing like 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 have there been uh is there anything kind of new on the horizon or there have been items answer his question first

I'm sorry good one no it was a great question um 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 King's 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 read some love to tell you this like it's us and Chick-fil-A are one and two and quick service average unit volumes like McDonald's sales are like a million less than mine right it's my repetitive customers that come back because they're gonna get that quality every time with a smiling face and so if I added different things right added spicy if added these one I wouldn't be as quick

in the drive-through right because the choices go down I wouldn't be able to cook it's cooked 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 right with the best quality you can get but if I added all these different things bone-in 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 now 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 as the as the company but the time it takes the other like managing the time of the person showing up without even real 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 canes box no saw extra toes extra sauce boom sweetie you're out the door or you're out through the drive-through and so we want to keep that time to a meal so even like not distracting things you know 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 the window 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 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 any 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 I'm 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 not really there you know it's not the same thing it won't be craveable yeah and they want to come back and say that people told me but they scared me they were like well you're gonna get the cancel vote like if one person the car with one of the parents wants it they're not gonna go to you go somewhere else I'm like no if the kids are gonna 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 right because if you try to be that man you're gonna you're gonna not not be anything to anybody right I want that craveable customer we call them

kaniacs and uh 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 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 monitor by the railroad tracks dude I probably ran almost 15 miles oh Jesus yeah it was not good dude that was a bad that was a not good for the art yeah for the art bro I still sometimes I can still feel my heart feels like it has a a horse who offended man every now and then it gets a little trotty um today's program is brought to you by the hulu original series modoc you know I can't stop talking about this show you know it's

the craziest wildest thing I've seen in a long time modoc is a supervillain voiced by the incredible Patton Oswalt oh yeah did I mention that modoc stands for mental organism designed only for killing for modoc the only thing harder than ruling the planet is running a family we all know that this show has an amazing cast with Patton Oswalt as modoc along with Amy Garcia Ben Schwartz Melissa Fumero Wendy McClendon Covey Beck Bennett John Daly Sam Richardson and Celebrity Cameos as some of your favorite Marvel heroes Marvel's modoc series premiere May 21st only on Hulu 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 like this joke when I do 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 you when they didn't know yeah yeah 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 uh just take me through some of that please well except for me you know the whole business been one series of getting uh 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 other side of campus the one on lead drive you probably went to that one too I probably fried your chicken late night there

and but but I wasn't I didn't have my staff ready I didn't have all my people together and like I thought 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 my partner ended up saying hey man this isn't for me oh 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 read the wall street journal he was just more that business side of it you know but like going from there then I grew five restaurants in five months these old drive-through double drive-throughs and baton

reviews were going once again I stretched just too much we did a good job opening up in Lafayette which is a first in Lafayette, Louisiana first one out of the market crushed it there but then I'm like I gotta 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 I'm a butt kicked in both of them lost a bunch of money till I could bring it back up series of things like that and now what so if there was suggest so how 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 it and now with the scale of business is it was actually good for me to go and make those mistakes because now

like I know it sounds like a hundred locations down is a lot but look I'm 25 years in the business right we're at that point I can open quality locations so I didn't learn the hard way that's the way I learn you know but if I 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 people more people didn't have the right support for me they worked themselves to the bone that didn't feel good right you know I would go on the right way taking my time done it right now still quick you know and got open and did the things is but I would take 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 in the new market still to today look I'm coming into Nashville now I got the food truck here it's going around to see people like seating 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 or John Lieto 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 well go and he talked about whenever they first started franchising how it just got away from him in 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 this and 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 on the way it should be done right and to help them you know and uh I thought that was pretty fascinating that that seemed like a moment where he really had to get back out there and almost do more work than he 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 braving fans of our brands it's it's it's what our gift of the world is and uh but you get you get sucked in and you grow too quick and then you gotta go back and fix it 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 sorry just so we know well so like so most of people like quick service are franchise models right yes you have corporate they have

you know all the intellectual properties the name 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 know you have to have a 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 and their trade area where they live and so

for me it's a lot more debt you know people from 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 and their family get to enjoy that and to do it but so but taking your time is setting it up getting the right people to run your restaurant whether it's a franchisee or its company you know you need to set those people up for success you need to train train over train you need to have so much support going in to get them started because it's hard to get 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 something I 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 Byer 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. You look good here. Your hair looks great by the way. Oh thank you very much. Amazing. Yeah it's coming in well man I've had hair transplant too I've had hair taken out of the back and put in the front oh no shit that'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 the people around like everybody cares about you you know I feel like so cared about when I'm at the surgery place but um well I've had the same haircut since I've been three have you you know what I could almost see that man I'm old hair that's was it a did you go to church with that cutter no

oh yeah these put a bowl around my 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 our our bus driver would cut our hair in comington so mr this dude mr nat every like two weeks he would park the bus on the way home for a dollar fifty would cut your hair dude he literally would just go around the bus everybody get the same cut there you go like literally we all look like we're part of some cult without Kool-Aid right like just everybody was just you show up you just have hair all over your mom was like what happened the bus driver I love it I got my hair cut back I got him 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 so all my friends went to RL we were like hey can you do this cool cut this thing like he'd listen yeah yeah yeah finally had to leave RL you know 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 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 yeah what was that I don't know it's like that dust yeah it's that powder it made me a little chalky man I'm like what is this they

thought that was like the nice touch in the end yeah yeah it was a little bit 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 uh 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 store 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 hey thank you yeah so when the pandemic started our business sales actually went up okay okay so we have

drive-thru format so that became a thing I don't know if you remember when it 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-thru oh wow so drive-thru was suddenly just the luckiest thing on earth dude exactly and so my 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 as I thought what we could do and I mean I got on social media and stuff 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 the power of it and I said

well you know what being an entrepreneur I said like 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 Keynes markets are so I could use our help for our people pick these legendary restaurants these family restaurants are 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 to which was really special and yeah so Rob Snyder did one yeah yeah Snyder's nice stuff to come out and do uh the Phoenix episode and like just this family she's a Pakistani lady and does the business with her son Omar and I mean look they they they serve just really really good food

but they're in Tempe in the university shut down no classes they were thinking about that 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 and his famous catch in the end zone yeah 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 on my team we had 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 a family like look there you could see the stress on their face with him coming in funny guy caring they're laughing like look what's what's we're gonna get

through this together really great man and basically the thing I was able to see more than anything else is they're all pretty predominantly dining room business that was gone taken away so I needed to put them into like make them a to-go machine right which sounds easy but it's not like to do it right you gotta have mobile ordering you gotta have curbside delivery takes a lot of technology right right it's not something a restaurant owner is just trying to keep the business open every day doing rocking up credit card debt keeping their people employed yes you could do that right especially if it's not a man like a you know you think of a small business guy he shows up he puts the pot on the stove in the morning and starts making the

despacho or whatever it is like so yeah that person isn't going to go from that to having that app or that ability to to uh 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 look you know I'm a chain and I like getting business obviously right we do a good job and we work hard for it but we have all the advantages I got a huge marketing budget right 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 a high-rise or chain and we don't need 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 that little hardware shop go go support that small business a background backbone of our country plus different thoughts it makes things great 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 five and ten percent bottom line okay so everybody that comes in you're doing good if you made five cents on a dollar ten ten cents on a dollar you're doing great and so that means if somebody spends a dollar you make ten cents you make doing well you're doing five between five cents and ten cents so there's just not much margin there right wow and between that five and ten cents for every dollar spent there when you have commodity pressures and things like that which price of chicken goes up then it just goes down and so you just got slim margins that's four before taxes that's five cents to ten cents a dollar before then you go get the taxes so if I spend

ten dollars at a raising canes or at a what's the quick service you talk yeah quick service fast food you know okay so if I spend ten dollars at a quick service restaurant then if they're making ten cents of that so that they're making a dollar out of ten dollars that I spend and they're doing well doing well wow that's ten percent doing well then that's before taxes 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 um 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 apply because if it goes below five percent and gets lower you 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 ROAs 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 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 it doesn't hurt canes because you're going to eventually pass it on right wages go up then you're going to raise the price of the chicken finger box right it's just going to go up and we have and you can't do that overnight you have to stage into it and so we're we just have a lot of resources man I mean like I have a strategy for pricing the tough artists 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

their margins go too small but look it's going there $15 an hour minimum wage we're going there I just 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 just it's it's lay 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 broad such a breadth of of information you can pull in you can look at it and you can like 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 these 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 we have to or you're going to be out of business you know 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 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 only take a crack at it you started from nothing and you appreciate every fan and it means something to you so it's 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 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 yeah and it's exact opposite and big corporate America especially in restaurants like those CFO types are like they already have their pricing da da da it's not a personal decision it's all a financial decision that they're doing it's different for people that that care you know is it interesting at a certain point as you grow and

as big things turn more from like sit like manning a fryer to um to like business like I noticed with business the more business I start doing the more business I have to do yeah you know 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 or yeah absolutely you know all on the way and so 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 kings 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's not just I want to have locations all the world there's nothing about I want to make a bunch of money I don't have all these things in there it's literally wow into Keynes 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 I know I need to do that then I'm going to grow it and so mine's an infinite vision like I I won't see it all over

the world you know I mean I'm gonna 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 on 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 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 and in the respect of 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 you haven't relaxed or you haven't done time the family and things like that and then I was like but look that vision pushed me through ultimately it's going to really help people and and you just got to stick with it and go you know 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 then you know 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 and 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 it's kind of a heartbreaker you know at times you know something people need to think strategically where am I going you know yeah 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 in and like helping and like giving back and 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 non-profit you know

that that arm of it but I certainly hope to at some point um but sometimes I have to remember that that's what's kind of important you know yeah that's 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 business and do it giving you get so much more back right and then it just gives your life purpose right so giving comes in other ways not just charity just giving money to these things is it's inspiring people you know it's it's it's someone saying hey I have this dream and like look this chicken finger guy did it even commercial fish in Alaska

reconstructed 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 have we learned from people on the way you know what I mean people say hey you're a self-made man I'm like oh I'm not man I'm a collection of what I wanted to do but help but people along the way right you know so we're giving back parts really cool what were some um was it was there an item so don't forget was there a uh 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 stick stuck with that one love or other I mean 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 sneak a eclair in there and nothing man I'd never even had 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 yeah 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 uh breakfast and then they even want a dessert when it well rounded so we added a chicken finger salad for them right it started off 20% of sales a chicken finger salad and then it slowly drifted back then it went rapid and became one percent of sales because people are like once they tried the chicken fingers it just shows you like right

it's it's it's a non-item for me right we had these great cookies all this stuff is people who need dessert canes you finish that man you're good to go so then but but for those locations you had to have that city mandates right they just need you know they just the city council says hey we need healthy we need dessert we need these things to make it well rounded because like sometimes it scares them to kind of 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 the airport it's cookies they have these great chocolate cookies you know and I could get the pucks and I mean I tried thousands of cookies and all that but like in the end you know people

got in the beginning but that meals so flavorful and good that cookie couldn't match that chicken I was a mother cookie guy I can'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 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 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 that I trust you know I don't have a bunch of employees but just like I noticed that even in all in all walks my life even in relationships like to trust somebody to care about me all that kind of stuff did you notice in in your 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 fried everybody's chicken you know every piece of equipment like the first location you used to go to man like I put in every board I mean I like literally that's my baby so I was used to doing all of it was it serrano's were you on serrano's oh yeah yeah yeah right there on that right the court varsity the serrano's and canes right oh yeah my ex-girlfriend used to work at serrano yeah good margarit is yeah they had I mean they had everything in there dude everything was good good margarit it's uh it's something else now unfortunately it's gone but chimes are still there yeah and they added a

rooftop at times you see that oh man I live a minute from there man oh there and have beers all the time man okay especially this time of year was nice and this is LSU 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 to be in part of that community because you have all those louis you know the breakfast spot you know yeah me and my mother went there a couple weeks ago actually there you go and like frenchy's always in there cooking your food and clark has highland coffees and you have you have chimes you have the varsity you have raisin canes original mothership and that whole community is great I actually had the raisin canes I had I got I've lived in the apartment behind the first canes and so

literally that's where I started construction did everything there that's why my dog was out there cane and a friend said you ought to name it raisin canes after your dog like nice all happened because it was right there it's nice to be part of the community yeah you guys built that dog park too over there yeah yeah yeah I love that dog park 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 bass and hounds out there it was unbelievable man and then something nipped at him I think a little Ibu sheba enu 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 probably I took him right there it's cool I love it you didn't have a dog you're like I'll bring you there'll be dogs you can play oh I took him there yeah he was really dangerous man but he did an upgrade there but uh at the dog park but with new sections I got you so much we couldn't even keep grass and stuff so uh it's nice over there thank you guys for doing that um but just look back to your deal on the on the being able to like yeah the control 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 getting 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 does bring in people 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 to like oh just delegate like just delegate like what a word is that no it's 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 is better than it ever has been and 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 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 always 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 AJ 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 um uh Edison swests swests is the boating company off of Louisiana anyway he built various west he built these boats you know 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's looking at he said look it's not just the bottled 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 staying in the details but they trust people hmm 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 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 work as great as they should have been and we followed 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 get at what you do if you don't have heart and 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 important as mine but taking that extra time then it's then it's people you can trust better right and you get through that process what type of person does it take to run a 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 some of the loves the food business right it's it's interesting business it's a hard business you got to love it so look on my sleeve at Raising Keynes it says frockett cashier my business card says founder chairman CEO frockett cashier it's like you got to be a frockett cashier you got to love it I like working for our 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 like we talked about a positive motivational management people that want to encourage people through because you get so much more with honey than you try more flies with honey than uh

than whatever else vinegar I think scotch 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 doesn't 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 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 that 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 and 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 and uh and sometimes you need help and a person or group or place that is not even a place actually that can help you is better help you can start communicating with a therapist soon quickly under 48 hours the service is available for clients worldwide if you're in india bagastan um new deli north dakota get help better help committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed you know I was having a tough day I was driving to see my friend

I pulled over on the side of the road next thing you know I'm better help FaceTiming with this dimey little blonde uh therapist honestly so better help want you to start living a happier life today visit their website yep visit betterhelp.com slash Theo that's b-e-t-t-e-r-h-e-l-p and join the over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional this podcast is sponsored by better help and this past weekend listeners get 10 off their first month at betterhelp.com slash Theo show me we got a good question that came in was that one you pulled up or yeah there we go that's it yeah yo yo it's geopalarma from akron ohio what's up mr raisin cane um i had a question

for you today uh i'm a big fan of your establishment your chicken establishment your buns your coast law all the 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 um chicken establishments and i was wondering who do you fear the most in the chicken gang yeah do you fear you know the zax beast chicken the bojangs the chicky filet the pop eyes the churches you know um let me know who's your who are you scared of who you fear the most yeah gang gang who's that foul valdemort man who's the dart yeah who's that who's the competition foul valdemort so fortunately we are very symbiotic with all those concepts right so we're next to every chick filet you know i mean

in the in the trade areas we're doing business in we're next to chick filet we're next to pop eyes we're next to the zax beast 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 filet 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 the zax beast has a really expanded menu so which is works for them is good so then someone might get a salad from there they might go somewhere else and get bone chicken you know at pop eyes but we don't see like our competitors can run some kind of like special like you know we got a bunch of betters but they might run a special on chicken fingers like we don't lose a

a set 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 tie graves going that wants to come and compete directly right and you know says hey i'm gonna go head to head with canes i'm gonna 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 instance is so personal 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's representation my family so you bet you better come with all your guns because i love young entrepreneurs and everybody takes

ideas from everybody right i mean guthrie star the whole phenomenon but like you better bring it if you're gonna compete with compete with raising canes because this is my world dang that's it 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 ricing canes or like sometimes i remember one time i remember being in um i think i was in singapore and the kfc the kernel on the sign there is an asian kernel 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 um 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 reasons one partner mohammed al shia

we resonate with each other on values right so he's like one of the large players there does all kind of franchise these puts puts the right people behind it he cares and we're lying value wise right so he's like some of his values are like getting the middle eastern people in the workforce right because ol's gonna dry up one day right you know what i mean like working women you know be like these countries man like we had one of the first women drivers come through our drive through in saudi and the kingdom and that felt good right 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 i gotta have music when you're going somewhere

now the crazy ones 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 i knew if there's a problem we could work through it together so one was parter then two the middle east they accept american concepts like don't have to change it don't have to do other things because like having changed a menu my whole adult life right so i want to go somewhere improve that it's working well it's doing well we got like 30 in the whole area um they're crazy about it um 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 i 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 i'm not a slaw fan like people always like 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 our sauce um 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 now it drives me crazy because it's like it uh you look we 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 now you know i want to give them what they want yeah i like a little bit extra i even if i get pancakes i ask them to cook them extra crispy yeah that's like a more crisp out a little bit for some reason um shon do we another question that came in what up the oh 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 uh first of all theo i love your show it's such a huge encouragement to me man and uh thanks brother mr graves i just want to ask you um 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 i'm saying everything about getting into the spaghetti business because i'm making some meatballs tonight baby oh gang oh wow he's got some beautiful balls saying 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 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 uh from texas i love my boys clint black well clint black really wouldn't

go i guess to say more of a robber roll king and oh and all these young guys come a co-wetsel and uh and those guys man they just got they got a good sound and they're pure do they are i'm i love the old greats willy well that guy's great willy nelson's so good man oh he's great he likes canes and he's such a nice guy my chicken finger ventures i've got to meet all these really cool people billy gibbons last night got to meet i mean how cool but um and they're all canes fans was just crazy we can get into that later but uh 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 like uh post malone i just like all forms of music and for me is staying relevant right i got a young fan base right a young young

fan base and so not becoming a dinosaur and just listen 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 like travis scott gave me these shoes right oh god he grew up in missouri city and he went to the canes and they were crazy about it and then he grows me here's a story this guy started this and then they want to meet post he's like i got to become friends and and these are brilliant guys but they're cool as hell right and it's like but so so listen their music means 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 dog's a great

friend and so he was in baton rouge years ago he's dropped through the original canes right he was down there with master p oh yeah man that was like town when he came in it was great bro that was a crazy time so i remember i would used to go to the rec center right and master p this is when this is before sea murdering going to jail and silk the shocker they would all they would be in there and they used to fly like mba 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 too 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 the after they played and we go sit in there and watch them uh yeah just play in the rec center it was crazy time wasn't it man it was great and so so dog snoop dog would drive through canes 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 change in 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 the restaurant recovery episode in la 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 got good values and the 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 jail and ramsey's here in town he's a superstar on 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 and 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 they're kind of charity because it gets amplified and that means what 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 natus said he really appreciates you and an inspiration to him and i think all of us whether your chicken finger famous are here are in your world we need

to be good examples these things that matter man so many things that don't matter they don't matter in those people's lives we need we need inspiration yeah it's uh especially these days it's tough because a lot of mainstream media seems like it battles against that they don't you know it's not like 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 yeah so it almost seems like a time better to kind of lean into the good and uh 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 now we got a long

way to go yeah 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 move for our country wrong move it's going to get so bad that they don't have to cycle back because people start there's there's they're not listening as much to the to the negative and the sensationalism they're starting to figure it out yeah yeah i think that's pretty cool to see um when so when you look to your horizon of life like uh was there a moment where you realized okay i can not take a break but i've achieved i've achieved you know 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 um in more of a human way you know it might have it has evolved some but um was there a moment where you kind of realized okay you know a little bit yeah yeah so uh financially right so we we hit on this earlier but like growing it meeting my wife then going through now i got kids i'm highly leveraged i wanted to go

and have things now i'm not talking rules roises 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 those went down i had levered the business what i was doing is banking back then was was 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 a sub debt investor meaning subordinated debt to the bank i could go raise 100 200 000 dollars and give them a subordinate note to the bank means the bank gets their money first and but i'm gonna pay you a 15 percent return this is just kind of my entrepreneurial

financing what i did and the banks would actually kind of use that as equity saying what 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 don't want to sell i didn't want private equity partners i wanted i wanted to own it and control it and but when it went down so like our restaurants and open the 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 also that Katrina comes in you got cashflow 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 the ache in my belly like because i'm putting everything towards canes i'm everything's levered so i'm in monstrous debt and i just didn't have that nest egg for my family you know what does something happen to me you know what i mean what happens to mom or whatever especially the last image graves you're freaking halfway there you're already halfway there right

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 but you know and 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

experiences you always got to kind of do it for this way whether it's this or this we have to keep going like if you stop you slip back yeah and look at people that which i think is retirement you know if some people want to retire i think that's when they're hey i'm gonna go fishing more i'm gonna do all those things is 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 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 this is perfect this thing we've achieved it you know like that's a second you think you've 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 it's for an hour i feel like nick sabin after after damn me alabama wins again he's like uh we're starting recruiting in the morning but he's a champ and i look like i respect the heck out of him you know but i'm like we have to celebrate so celebrating success is i think is important even it's just one night you know you're right man somebody told me that the other day said man sometimes you got to look you 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 you know and it like and you have then it makes you 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 a grout a chart or something where it's like yeah well your vision and your purpose because those are two different things but they're very this they're similar but they're one is almost more of a divine and one is almost more of a will yeah 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 braided them just by i know what my purpose is and the vision with the business is going to get us there right then setting setting goals right so we're canes is going to be 25 in august and they're like how you want to celebrate i want to do 25 million dollars the communities we do business in you turn 50 in february we'll do i want to do 50 million dollars back into the business like but setting those personal goals too then then you get a plan behind it what can we do with these things right so that's that vision strategy the will other side the purpose is more divine why are you here right what is your purpose yeah and to ask ourselves that and and answer it

honestly to ourselves too you know yeah i think sometimes it can be scary even to hear what the answer is you know it can see my hard work um but i think yeah i want to be scary too because you have to when you lock into something and you do it you 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 want to make promises to people uh what's your daily routine like Todd and then we'll get you on your way here oh man it's it's kind of everywhere like like a is it sporadic or do you have like a are you like a this is you know it's a little both so um 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 uh location i was looking at some in nashfield earlier today um every design of every restaurant every local cultural graphic that goes into the restaurants now i have incredible people in teams they pulled 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 a a division called kane's love it's about appreciating recognizing respecting rewarding crew members 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 a lot of people to 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 are is important they're out pandemic i mean i didn't stop i went to our markets i went and saw our people they're in a restaurant's working so i need to get out about a lot of things too is going to see um some of these famous kane acts to 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 look i appreciate that you know a hundred million people saw that or whatever crazy stuff like that so it's kind of that whole crazy mix you know i mean catch my son's baseball games uh 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 uh but that's just kind of how uh how i roll every week i got get my mom asked me where you're going next week i'm like i don't even think about it yeah yeah it's yeah it's almost too much sometimes when you rattle up that when you really stack the future onto today you know it can get to be a lot show on any other question that you wanted to get answered other videos okay cool man uh tiger 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 uh a lot of there became like a lot of lawsuits and legal issues the bigger his company got is that um do you notice that you have to spend more time like the bigger you get the the the more time you have to spend almost doing yeah stuff like that not fun stuff yeah the not fun stuff yeah yeah i mean look works work and sometimes the grind but when you have these litigious lawsuits that come that's not real look like we screw up always back us but like setups and these things come in that are not true yeah you gotta spend the time snakes and you gotta spend your time and your money and you have to go back and defend the 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 yeah it just comes constantly man that's the stuff that just like it just takes it out of you and you know what but but being a j my co ceo say look look we have to we have to be 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 had this part of the business unfortunately yeah now i like the way that you think about handling that though that yeah it's like you just have to rise above it you know you just have to believe in what your purpose is what

your goal is yeah man and then what you're doing is putting more good out there than you know then then 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're gonna have a good legal team and tell them go right back at them and do it you know it's like but anyway unfortunately that's kind of goes with the territory we can't let it get us down we're just gonna keep doing and we're gonna keep creating good things for people look for me is just anybody in life you know 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 know you matter and you

matter to people and you're an example to people like like you know my high school coach and my high school teachers are like some of my biggest heroes to today right yeah influence me in such a way and they cared you know I mean it doesn't matter what you do but doing it and saying let's believe the world in a better place you know if everybody thinks that way rather than get ahead and I really think that's what America is all about I think we are that way you know I think we are but people remembering that and keeping that whatever you do just do it good for other people too hey man lean into the good Todd Graves thank you so much for joining us man man you know this was a blast I had a great time this is cool yeah thanks for introducing me your son it was a pleasure

to meet him and uh and I'll make uh I'll look forward to getting uh one of the best chicken finger meals here soon that might be outside right outside in front of your pad here oh really okay okay I got the truck out here right here for you I wanted to get it hot and fresh after we got to have a good talk and okay let's go have some chicken that sounds good thanks Todd thank you man for me to set that parking brake and let myself on my shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my story shine on me

to me and I will find a song I will sing it just for you and now I've been moving way too fast on the runaway train with a heavy load of my past and these wheels that I've been riding on they want something that they're damn they're gone I guess now they just won't