Fast food restaurant chain Raising Cane’s is on a mission: to spread their ‘ONE LOVE’ (quality chicken finger meals) across the USA and beyond. Already operating from over 500 restaurants in 29 states and territories, they are now bringing their delicious chicken to even more areas, thanks to a pair of custom food trucks. The trucks were delivered at the end of 2020, as a surprise for the company’s Founder, Todd Graves, from his co-CEO, AJ Kumaran, to celebrate the brand’s 25th anniversary. They are now making their way across the US, as part of the ‘Cane’s Across America’ campaign, visiting areas not yet served by a Raising Cane’s restaurant.
A true ‘rags to riches’ story, Graves came up with the idea for a restaurant chain focused on delivering quick, delicious chicken finger meals while in college. The concept received the worst grade in a Business Plan class and was rejected every time Todd presented it to a bank. Undeterred, he worked hard to save enough of his own money to open his first store in August 1996 from which the business rapidly expanded. Despite now operating from over 500 locations, a hallmark of Raising Cane’s is individuality. Every restaurant is unique, with 100s of distinctive details, which is something AJ and his team were keen to see replicated in their food trucks.
When it came to building trucks that would not only embody the Raising Cane’s brand, but also be worthy of marking the company’s 25th anniversary, there was only one person for AJ to call. Cameron Davies, the President and CEO of Cruising Kitchens, has setup a huge 64,000 sq. ft. one-stop shop in San Antonio, TX and assembled a talented and skilled team especially for the task of designing and fabricating epic food trucks and other custom mobile business vehicles. The company even has its own TV show – Built For Business – shown on Motor Trend TV, which captures the process of Cameron and his team meeting with their clients, coming up with crazy custom vehicle ideas and bringing them to life.
As featured on Built For Business, AJ and his team toured Cruising Kitchen’s facility in San Antonio and shared their vision for a 25th anniversary truck. Cameron and his team then set to work on a 24’ custom build that would not only allow Raising Cane’s signature chicken finger meals to go on the road but would also embody the unique atmosphere of their restaurants. However, AJ was so impressed with the Cruising Kitchens team that, just two weeks before the first truck was due to be delivered, he upped the order, asking for an additional 18’ unit so that more of the country could be covered by Cane’s Across America.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Cameron was happy to have his team fast-track the second build, while also working to finish the flagship truck. A key aspect of this vehicle was the audio and visual installation, which is where Joshua Davies, Cruising Kitchen’s Director of Operation & A/V Specialist, came in.
“Raising Cane’s didn’t just want a food truck,” Joshua explains. “They asked us to create an all-inclusive entertainment vehicle, so audio and video was a big part of this project. They wanted to be able pull up to somewhere and provide a full party experience along with the food. They also wanted something that no other food truck had, to make theirs unique. That’s where the idea for putting a pop-up DJ booth on the roof came from, and the LED video panels were the perfect way to draw attention up to the DJ with custom-branded visuals.”
The LED video panel model selected for this task was the ADJ AV4IP, which features a configuration of RGB SMD1921 LEDs with a pixel pitch of 4.81mm. Offering an impressive 4000NITS of brightness and two LED modules per panel for easy serviceability, each panel contains 104 x 104 LEDs, which is equivalent to 43,264/m2. The panel has a wide viewing angle of 140-degrees as well as an IP65-rated front and IP54-rated back, making it ideal for outdoor use.
For Raising Cane’s flagship food truck, the Cruising Kitchens team created three custom frames, each designed to accommodate three AV4IP panels side-by-side, to form the front and sides of the rooftop DJ booth. These frames were mounted to the roof of the vehicle on articulated brackets that allow the booth to fold down, with the panels sitting over each other, so that they can be securely strapped down for transit.
“We already knew ADJ’s AV4IP is a great product because we’d previously used the panels to create a huge pop-up Jumbotron on our ‘Powerhouse Kitchen’ project, the world’s largest mobile kitchen, that we built for San Jose State University. That was back in 2019, and we haven’t had any problems since, so the panels have proven to be very reliable, which made them the obvious choice for this DJ booth build. For this kind of project, brightness is also very important and the AV4IP panels are extremely bright. You can still see them even in direct sunlight, which is what the clients were particularly concerned about, as there is no kind of covering and they will be typically used during the day. The AV4IP really delivered on this and the clients are very happy. And if the clients are happy, we’re happy! Our overall experience of using ADJ LED panels has been very positive, and for future builds we’re also looking forward to using the new VS3IP with its slightly tighter pixel pitch.”
Despite the tight turnaround, the Cruising Kitchens team managed to have both trucks ready on time and delivered them to the original Raising Cane’s restaurant in Baton Rouge, LA. AJ surprised Todd with first the smaller truck, which he loved, followed by the flagship vehicle, which truly blew him away. Both trucks encapsule the fun and individuality of a Raising Cane’s restaurant, but the rooftop DJ booth on the larger truck is undoubtedly the icing on the cake. With its eye-catching wraparound LED screen, it will stand out from the crowd wherever it goes, getting the party started with good food and good music, which always leads to good times!
