Two Baton Rouge-based restaurant chains have made a Top 10 list of quick-service restaurants in the country. Raising Cane’s tied for fourth with Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop on Sandelman & Associate’s Quick-Track list, while CC’s Coffee House is tied for sixth with Café Zupas. Cane’s previously has made the list, and two years ago it ranked first. This is CC’s first year, however, and company president and CEO Celton Hayden says it’s an honor to be ranked so highly among many much larger national chains.
“This is well renowned [ranking] firm so this means a lot,” says Hayden, who became president of CC’s two years ago and last week was also named company CEO. “We scored really well in all the categories but the one that stood out is that our consumers, our guests, trust our brand.”
Rankings were based on surveys of more than 100,000 quick-chain customers, who ranked restaurants they had recently patronized on 16 different customer service attributes. Nearly 150 restaurants were on the list, including Chick-fil-A, which is ranked No. 1 and has more than 1,800 locations; Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which has more than 800 locations; and Firehouse Subs, which has more than 700.
CC’s has just 31 locations, all of which are in Louisiana except for one on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Hayden says the university sought the company out last year because it was seeking an alternative to “a well-known coffee shop that will remain nameless.” The first out-of-state CC’s opened in time for the fall semester and has been doing well, Hayden says.
The Arizona store won’t be the only CC’s outside of Louisiana for long. As the company continues to grow its licensing program, it recently signed a deal with a franchisee to develop three stores in Mississippi. The first will be in Ridgeland, which is just north of Jackson. Locations for the other two outlets have not yet been determined.
Hayden says the company hopes to grow long-term, but for now it wants to keep most of its new outlets in Louisiana or the nearby region.
“We really want to focus on Louisiana, our home,” Hayden says. “We’re very conservative and the rate of expansion, particularly outside Louisiana, is going to be slow.”
—Stephanie Riegel
