Dive Brief:
- Raising Cane’s will open its first restaurant in the United Kingdom in London late next year, according to a press release emailed to Restaurant Dive.
- The chicken finger chain’s U.K. units will be company-operated, and the brand is looking to hire a president for the U.K. to oversee the opening of a support center and additional restaurants in the London area.
- The intense competition between U.S. fried chicken chains is spreading to Europe as Chick-fil-A works to establish a beachhead in the British Isles, and Dave’s Hot Chicken targets 60 units in the region. Raising Cane’s, like Chick-fil-A, has a strong domestic average unit volume of about $6.6 million, according to the press release.
Dive Insight:
Todd Graves, Raising Cane’s owner and founder, said the brand’s U.K. debut has been in the works for several years.
“It has always been a dream of mine to bring Cane’s to the UK and I’m excited to officially kick off this growth,” Graves said in the press release.
Raising Cane’s London flagship will be downtown between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, and is just blocks away from Dave’s Hot Chicken’s flagship unit, putting the two brands in direct competition.
The chicken finger chain plans to open several more London units beyond its Piccadilly location in “areas around The Strand, Oxford Circus, Paddington and South Bank as well as Drive-Thru locations across greater London and beyond,” according to the press release.
Raising Cane’s said its domestic momentum has given it the confidence to grow beyond the U.S. In its home market, the chain is targeting 1,600 units, an $8 million AUV and annual sales of $10 billion by 2030, which would make it one of the leading chicken chains in the country.
According to the press release, the brand is over halfway to hitting that goal, with about 900 restaurants, a $6.6M AUV and $5.1 billion in annual sales in 2024.
To support continued growth, Raising Cane’s is changing its support structure so that it has seven different divisions. The brand is investing heavily in its Texas support center, at a time when many other brands are laying off support center staff.
The chain, alongside Wingstop, surpassed KFC in U.S. sales last year, according to Circana. KFC, however, is a strong player in the U.K. and Ireland, with more than 1,000 restaurants across the two countries. During the second quarter, its U.K. business reported a 5% increase in system sales compared to an 8% decline in system sales in the U.S., according to an earnings release. The dynamism of KFC’s U.K. operations have allowed Yum Brands to use the market to test a new beverage sub-brand, Kwench, which may eventually come stateside.
