Jamie Griffin joined Raising Cane’s as a college junior in 2002, when there were 10 restaurants and an office support staff of about 15. He was an assistant, which could mean taking out the trash or picking up founder Todd Graves’ dry cleaning.
Today, the chicken fingers chain has more than 60 stores in 13 states with more on the way, a support staff of nearly 100 and more than 2,000 total employees. Cane’s ranks 42nd on Business Report’s most recent list of the top 100 local private companies as ranked by revenue.
Griffin coordinates the legal team, oversees the company’s trademarks and administers franchise development. Cane’s might never rule the world like McDonald’s, but they could be selling chicken fingers on the other side of the globe in 40 years, he says.
“If there’s an opportunity for one of our stores to exist in a market, we want one in that market,” he says.
Griffin is a champion of the smart growth principles espoused in the Louisiana Speaks regional plan, and is the president-elect of Forum 35, which he says has grown from about 350 members a couple of years ago to 825 members today. The next step for Forum 35 is to become more systematic in the way the group selects projects, raises money and builds leadership among its members. Hopefully, many of those members will go on to leadership positions in the wider community, he says.
“(Younger adults) tend to complain about things and say we don’t have a voice,” Griffin says. But when they have the opportunity to get a place at the table, they have to take it, he says.
Who do you most admire in the business community and why?
“I will say Todd (Graves, Raising Cane’s founder and CEO). He’s got a lot of energy and passion. He’s always true to himself and true to his business.”
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