Madison Blankenship
English 101-004
Mr. Lyles
October 19, 2012 Raising Cane’s Vs. Chick-fil-A
Raising Cane’s and Chick-Fill-A are very popular fast food restaurants that both specialize in chicken. While both specialize in the same type of food, they conduct their businesses differently. Their presentations are similar in some areas and different in others. Kristin Mastre greatly explains that Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-A can be easily compared through their environment, costs, nutrition, and variety in her article,“Throwdown! Chick-fil-A versus Raising Cane’s.” (par. 1).
The environments of each restaurant provide an atmosphere that makes the customer want to return. Raising Cane’s has a very fun type of decoration using movie posters, band posters, and sports team decoration. It uses these posters to attract people of all ages to eat there. Raising Cane’s also allows their employees to show team spirit for sports’ teams around the area (Feasting Fort Collins, par. 7). This atmosphere makes the restaurant a perfect place to be after football games.
Chick-fil-A has a family oriented environment. It has children play places, and very polite service. Chick-fil-A employees will always ask, “How they may serve you?” and answer the customer’s “Thank you” with “My pleasure.” The customer service creates an atmosphere so the customer feels that he or she is not actually in a fast food restaurant (Feasting Fort Collins, par. 5). Both restaurants provide outstanding environments for their customers.
When comparing the prices in each restaurant, Raising Cane’s is known to have the less expensive prices (Feasting Fort Collins, par. 11). The majority of Raising Cane’s’ menu items specifically deal with chicken strips. When the chicken strip meals from each restaurant are compared, Raising Cane’s has the win. However, Chick-fil-A has a better deal on a sandwich combo than Raising Cane’s. Chick-fil-A is known for their chicken sandwich, as Raising Cane’s is known for their chicken strips. Each restaurant has a better deal for what they specially make. When comparing the two side by side, the prices are not much different and it really depends on what the customer wants to eat.

According to FatSecret, the nutrition values of fast food items show that they are obviously not the best choice for a healthy diet (par. 1). However, the nutrition facts do not always seem to affect one’s judgment when it comes to choosing to eat at these restaurants. The most popular combo order from the Raising Cane’s menu is the Box combo. The Box combo includes four chicken strips, a serving of crinkle fries, coleslaw, Texas toast, and one Cane’s sauce. Each chicken strip contains 127 calories. The serving of crinkle fries amounts to 291 calories. One slice of Texas toast adds up to 120 calories. Lastly, the Cane’s sauce adds on another 173 calories to the meal. Altogether the Raising Cane’s Box combo contains 1,125 calories without a beverage (FatSecret, par. 1).
Chick-fil-A’s most popular combo order is the Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich combo. The Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich combo includes a regular Chick-fil-A sandwich, medium order of waffle fries, and two Chick-fil-A sauces. This combo as a whole amounts to 1,110 calories with out a beverage. Each Chick-fil-A sauce has 140 calories within it. A medium waffle fry contains 390 calories, and the Chick-fil-A sandwich contains 440 calories. The Chick-fil-A Sandwich combo is 15 calories less than the Box combo. It is safe to say are Chick-fil-A and Raising Cane’s are just as equally unhealthy (FatSecret par. 1).
When looking at the variety of items on the menu, Chick-fil-A has much more to offer than Raising Cane’s does on its menu. Raising Cane’s offers three combos for different number of chicken strips and a chicken strip sandwich combo. Side items include coleslaw, crinkle fries, and Texas toast. Most importantly, each meal comes with Cane’s sauce or honey mustard sauce. The Cane’s sauce is made special in the restaurant every day. This sauce is the reason Raising Cane’s food has become so popular at such a rapid speed (Raising Cane’s, par. 2).
Chick-fil-A has eleven different combos: this includes: nuggets, strips, chicken sandwich, spicy sandwich, chicken salad sandwich, grilled chicken sandwich, chicken wraps, and the soup and salad combo. Certain sandwiches can be offered as deluxe sandwiches, doing this adds cheese and such items to the sandwich. The sides offered there are waffle fries, side salad, coleslaw, carrot and raisin salad, fruit cup, yogurt parfait, or chicken noodle soup. Chick-fil-A offers seven different sauces; these include barbeque, honey mustard, polynesian, buttermilk ranch, buffalo, honey roasted, and Chick-fil-A sauce (Chick-fil-A, par. 1). It is simple to see that Chick-fil-A has much more variety to offer than Raising Cane’s.

The environment, costs, nutrition, and variety for each restaurant have many similarities and differences. Both restaurants provide exceptional environments for their customers. Each restaurant provides a better deal for their specialties. The nutrition value for each restaurant’s most well-liked meals have basically the same amount of calories. However, the varieties offered from both restaurants are definitely different. Raising Cane’s offers only chicken strips or chicken strip sandwich; Chick-fil-A offers much more than two different food items. These two restaurants are known for specializing in chicken even though they operate differently. What brings these two restaurants together is their common interest in selling the best chicken.

Words: 875

Works Cited
FatSecret. FatSecret. 2012. Web. 18 October 2012.
Mastre, Kristin. “Throwdown! Chick-fil-A Versus Raising Cane's.” Feasting Fort Collins. Feasting Fort Collins. 10 October 2010. Web.18 October 2012. “Menu.” Chick-fil-A. CFA Properties, Inc. 2012. Web.18 October 2012.
Raising Cane’s. Raising Cane’s. 2012. Web. 18 October 2012.