BATON ROUGE, La. — The booths and tables inside the museum Todd Graves opened this week came out of restaurant supply stores in Dallas and Houston. He bought them cheap in the mid-1990s, off restaurants that had gone under.
Graves opened the original Raising Cane’s on Aug. 28, 1996. The chain turns 30 on Friday. The 30th-birthday pop-up museum opened Aug. 25 at 132 E. State Street in Baton Rouge, less than 100 steps from that first restaurant.
Thirty years on, the company runs its Dallas Restaurant Support Office out of Plano. It holds partnerships with the Dallas Cowboys, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Wings, and the Frisco RoughRiders. Micah Parsons and Corey Seager have both worked shifts behind the counter at North Texas locations. There were 68 Cane’s locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as of 2024.
Graves named Antoine’s in New Orleans, open since 1840. He said the floors there are the same floors. He named Drago’s too, for the charbroiled oyster.
“That’s just about holding on to what’s nostalgic,” Graves said. “These are all the original booths from the first Cane’s. We had to make two new ones because we’ll pull them out. We’re constantly repairing these things. But I want the original booths. I want you to sit in the original seats we sat in 30 years ago. That takes a lot of rehabilitation to keep doing it. These are all the original tables, original thank-you trash can.”
“I went around Texas, Houston and Dallas, to restaurant supply stores, because there’s massive restaurants over there, a lot go out of business,” Graves continued. “So I got all this stuff for cheap. I mean these tables for cheap, the booths and everything. But it’s like keeping that the same. It’s just nostalgia. You can sit in a seat.”
Inside The 30th Birthday Museum
Downstairs sits Graves’ original business plan, next to the briefcase he carried it in. The hard hat he wore working 90-hour weeks as a boilermaker is there. So are the original blueprints.
The disco ball came off a skylight Graves wanted covered. It became a fixture in Cane’s restaurants and still is.
Outside sits The Margaret Mae. Graves worked aboard the 1979 boat fishing sockeye salmon in Alaska to earn the money to open the place.
All 46 Plush Puppies are together for the first time. The set spans more than two decades.
The building is where Graves goes to get grounded in the first night he opened it. He was nervous. There was no cash flow and no way to know the concept would hold.
“It’s crazy seeing it all in one place at one time,” Graves explained. “Usually we spread it out, we have it around, we’re showing it in different places. But to have it all set up like this, the team blew me away how they set it all up. I’m glad I saved that stuff. Like the hard hat, I saved because I didn’t know when I’m gonna have to go back and work again. So I saved it. I never thought I’d be part of a museum. These pictures I took, I never thought would be part of telling a story.”
“Only the logo’s changed,” Graves added. “Same menu over 30 years, absolute same menu, nothing’s changed there. All the fundamentals are exactly the same.”
Upstairs is Apartment No. 4. Graves lived there, and the company’s first support office ran out of it. He moved his bed into the living room so he could watch the restaurant and the drive-thru from his window. Years later he bought the building and rebuilt the apartment: the paisley comforter, the VHS tapes, the cereal boxes on the refrigerator, the bathroom scale. Downstairs is self-guided. The apartment is guided only.
At the last culture immersion Cane’s held in Baton Rouge, about 700 people sat through a round table with the original crew.
“I keep up with about 12 of them, like Erin that took the first dollar,” Graves said. “She lives in Houston now. Stuff, I sent over his son’s birthday care packages for this weekend, because he wanted to have Cane’s, have a pool party at the house. You just make those lasting bonds and relationships. Everybody’s doing really well. Some live in Baton Rouge and some went around the country.”
Graves was 24 when he opened, on a shoestring budget. He said the place could have gone out of business easily.
“I over-leveraged the business,” Graves said. “Hurricane Katrina, I had 21 restaurants. I was using subordinated debt loans I’d get from people and using that as equity for banks. All the stuff you’re not supposed to do. Katrina hit. Twenty-one of 28 restaurants went down. I didn’t have that cash flow coming in. I could have bankrupted the company.”
Raising Cane’s In Dallas-Fort Worth
In 2009 the Plano office opened with a 24,000-square-foot lease in the Legacy business park and 53 jobs. It sits now at 6800 Bishop Road across 120,000 square feet.
Cane’s bought a 400,000-square-foot campus at 5320 Legacy Drive, once part of Ross Perot’s Electronic Data Systems campus. The Dallas Morning News reported in April that the company plans to spend $100 million renovating it. Work was expected to run through November 2027. Plano approved $6.2 million in incentives over 15 years in August 2024. The benchmarks include up to 1,020 full-time equivalent jobs and $20 million in building improvements. The company reported $5.1 billion in sales last year.
The Cowboys restaurant at 2255 W. Northwest Highway opened Oct. 12, 2023. A 32-foot Cowboys star fronts the drive-thru lane. Silver vinyl wraps the exterior. Inside there is Cowboys memorabilia and a mailbox for Post Malone fan mail. Post Malone grew up in Grapevine, designed the location, and cut the ribbon with Graves. Jerry Jones called the two friends and partners of the team in a statement at the time.
On Sept. 17, 2024, Parsons worked a shift at that store. He filmed promotional content, took orders at the counter and the drive-thru, and signed merchandise. The Dallas Observer reported the line ran out the door. Parsons called it the coolest Cane’s he had been to. His order is a Caniac Combo with three pieces of Texas toast. Green Bay acquired him from Dallas on Aug. 28, 2025.
Jourdan Lewis turned up at the same restaurant in December 2023, days after a Sunday night win over Philadelphia. The appearance was a fundraiser for the Jourdan Lewis Foundation, which works with at-risk youth ages 8 to 18. That day the fundraiser ran at Cane’s locations across the metroplex, not only the Cowboys store. Lewis signed with Jacksonville in 2025 after eight seasons in Dallas.
In a May 2024 market report, SponsorUnited counted 12 Raising Cane’s sponsorship and endorsement deals in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. That tied Toyota for second, behind Coca-Cola and Choctaw Casinos & Resorts at 13 apiece. Cowboys tight end Jake Ferguson was named among the athletes involved.
Ferguson caught 82 passes for 600 yards and eight touchdowns across 17 games last season, all career highs. He signed a four-year extension in July 2025 that runs through 2029 and includes $30 million in guarantees. Dallas took him in the fourth round, 129th overall, out of Wisconsin in 2022. He has made two Pro Bowls, the second as an alternate in January.
The Mavericks Shifts And The Winter Warm-Up Drive
P.J. Washington and Dereck Lively II worked a shift at a Dallas Raising Cane’s on Oct. 16, 2024. More than 100 fans came through while the two took orders at the front counter and the drive-thru and signed memorabilia. The next night Dallas played its preseason finale against the Milwaukee Bucks. The regular season opened at home against the San Antonio Spurs on Oct. 24.
Washington first tried Cane’s in fifth grade, before a game. He called the appearance a “full circle moment,” per Forbes.
Lively said the time spent with teammates away from basketball is where a player learns things he would not learn on the court.
“The AAC isn’t going to be as good as it is without all of our fans,” Lively said. “They come out to show love, no matter if it’s a Monday, a Sunday, or a Wednesday morning. Just knowing I’m going out there and I’ll always have someone cheering for me, coming back to give back to them shows that we appreciate them just as much as they love us.”
On Jan. 4, 2023, then-Mavericks forward Christian Wood served lunch and signed autographs at a Dallas Cane’s. The appearance launched the Mavericks’ Winter Warm-Up Drive with the chain, which collected coats, blankets, and other winter items for Austin Street Center. The Dallas Morning News covered it with staff photographs. The two ran the drive again in January 2025. Donations were taken at participating locations through Jan. 19, and anyone who brought an item in got a free lemonade.
Wood played 339 NBA games and averaged 13.6 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 1.4 assists. He last played in 2024.
Corey Seager And The Rangers Parade Shift
Hours after the Texas Rangers‘ World Series parade drew more than 500,000 people to Arlington, Seager worked the counter at the Cane’s at 1322 N. Collins St. The date was Nov. 3, 2023. He had been on the parade stage that afternoon.
Seager, the World Series MVP, used the stage to answer a comment Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman made a month earlier, when Houston took the American League West on the final day of the regular season. At the restaurant he said his teammates put him up to it, and that it was worth it, according to Sports Illustrated.
Clayton Kershaw worked a shift at a Dallas Cane’s on March 9, 2022, during the MLB lockout. The appearance supported Kershaw’s Challenge, the charity he runs with his wife, Ellen. Graves put out a statement joking that nobody expected the free agent to sign with Raising Cane’s. Kershaw was born in Dallas and drafted out of Highland Park High School. He retired after the 2025 season with 223 wins, a 2.53 ERA, and 3,052 strikeouts across 18 seasons.
The Wings Deal And Women’s Sports
On Aug. 7, 2024, Cane’s signed a multi-year agreement with the Wings. It was the company’s second WNBA partnership that season, after a deal with the Chicago Sky.
A sponsored Caniac Play of the Game runs on Wings broadcasts. Cane’s puts activations around the arena on game days. The Caniac Ticket Pack bundles home game tickets with a lemonade card good at any of the 68 Dallas-Fort Worth locations. Cane’s is also the presenting partner of the Wings Summer Camp MVP Award.
Elsewhere in women’s sports the company works with NASCAR driver Toni Breidinger, two-time Women’s World Cup winner Ali Krieger, Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, and LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne.
Dallas is 23-16 and fourth in the Western Conference. The Wings clinched a playoff berth this week. On Tuesday they beat the Portland Fire 96-78. They host the Connecticut Sun on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. CT.
The collaboration Graves wants next would put a fashion house, a sports star, an entertainment star, and a philanthropist into a single restaurant. He does not think it has been done.
“As far as fashion, our team put together a fashion show last year, New York Fashion Week, and really got an amazing designer that took concepts like Cane’s sauce and made these beautiful dresses,” Graves said. “And the Cane’s sauce dress was this black sequined gown with Cane’s sauce kind of in the bottom, but it was a beautiful gown. And you had to point it out to know what it was. If not, it could be a runway. And we had model friends and some from LSU. We had Brooks Nader and we had Livvy Dunne come out and do it. But it was a fun way to just touch another crowd.”
Football Season And Lane Kiffin’s First LSU Team
Graves said the LSU practice he watched this month was one of the best he has seen from a prepared team. Players told him they had trained harder this offseason than they ever had.
“Looking back on 30 years, I’m an LSU fanatic,” Graves said. “We grew up in Baton Rouge and love all LSU sports, football being my favorite. And the feeling and the revelry of going to the games and pulling for the team, that’s what really carried over. We opened August 28th of 1996 right at football season, so I want to be part of people’s football experience. Coming in to Cane’s before the game, getting your tailgates to go out to your tailgate, coming in after the game after we won.”
LSU coach Lane Kiffin took the job in December, after six seasons at Ole Miss. The Tigers open Sept. 5 against Clemson at Tiger Stadium, with a 6:30 p.m. CT kickoff. Kiffin returns to Oxford for the SEC opener on Sept. 19. LSU hosts the Texas Longhorns on Nov. 14, the first meeting between the programs in Tiger Stadium since 1953. SEC media picked LSU fifth in July.
LSU announced the Woodside Energy patch in February, the first department-wide jersey patch deal in college sports. It debuts on the Clemson game and runs across all 21 varsity programs.
Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady And Chuck Norris
Graves said he has never cold-called anyone about a partnership. The people he works with were Cane’s customers first. He said the suites and entertainment weekends return marketing value, and that what he takes from them is the time around people in other trades.
“Snoop and I are the same age, but I always looked up to Snoop,” Graves said. “And Snoop, when he was here in town, would come through the drive-thru, but strangely enough, never when I was here. I worked constantly, but it’d be like, I’d come back 10 minutes later. People say, what do you talk about? We talk about business, and we partner on some businesses. I partner with him on the ice cream. And other things, and we do things in the community, like the Arizona Bowl. Tom Brady and I became friends about Super Bowl years ago. It fires me up, because if I get up and I’m tired, I’m like, Brady’s already gotten up an hour before me and he’s working out right now. Get to work.”
“And then Chuck Norris, because of the Chuck Norris campaign,” Graves continued. “Chuck Norris is a childhood idol. He was like five times national karate champ, international karate champ. I watched him in Return of the Dragon with Bruce Lee. But meeting him, I wanted to support his charities, and he’s like, I want to come out and speak to your managers. Same with Snoop. Chuck wrote out like 16 pages of handwritten notes. I thought you’d get five minutes and just do a deal.”
Norris died March 19 at 86, his family said in a statement. Before “Walker, Texas Ranger,” the series set in Dallas, he was a six-time undefeated World Professional Middleweight Karate champion.
A $50 Million Birthday Commitment
Cane’s committed $30 million to pet welfare organizations over the next 10 years. Graves pledged a personal $20 million through the Todd Graves Family Foundation to Re:wild, the conservation group co-founded by Leonardo DiCaprio.
Over the years the company has partnered with more than 1,000 pet organizations. It has donated more than $10 million to shelters, rescues, dog parks, and similar causes. The chain took its name from Graves’ yellow Lab.
A 30th Birthday Plush Puppy went on sale Aug. 27 at $12.99 plus tax. It wears a backward red cap, a red striped shirt, and light-wash denim, with headphones and a boombox. The run goes through Sept. 22 while supplies last. Net proceeds from puppies sold at participating restaurants go to local pet welfare organizations. A six-piece throwback retail collection launched Aug. 25 online.
Cane’s has more than 1,000 restaurants and 95,000-plus crew members. More than 1.1 million people have been hired over the 30 years, with 30,000 promotions. Graves is one of four founders still running a restaurant company with 1,000 or more locations. Glassdoor named him one of its Top CEOs for 2026.
Admission is free. The museum runs 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. CT on weekdays through Sept. 24. Group tours have to be arranged ahead.
