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Before every game during his 19-year NBA career, Shaq would devour ” a turkey club sandwich with extra mayo and two pineapple sodas,” which apparently exist. After the game, win or lose, the 7-foot-1, 325-pound leviathan would pound a chicken sandwich and macaroni.
Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers founder Todd Graves got a deeper look into Shaq’s dietary preferences by joining forces with him over the years, both professionally and personally.
His Raising Cane’s order, before he got all Instagram Fitness Model of course, was simply incredible.
WORKING WITH SHAQ@Raising_Canes founder @ToddGraves on @SHAQ's impressive business mind and more impressive appetite.
16 pieces of toast is child's play for Diesel.
Full @endless__hustle interview: https://t.co/5KEN4u1XUk pic.twitter.com/xnn0LJq5Ox
— BroBible (@BroBible) May 27, 2021
“So back in his prime, this is what he used to eat. He’d order the Caniac. So that’s 7 chicken fingers, fries, cole slaw, extra toast, and he’d be fine with that. But at points, he would add 16 pieces of toast on top of that because he loved the bread.”
A visual representation:
Raising Cane's
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Graves also claimed that even when the cameras are off and Shaq has nothing to gain, he is as as warmhearted as we’d hope he’d be.
“I’m always impressed with how gracious he is to people. He’ll go to three different Cane’s, walk in by himself, take a picture with every crew member. He’s just that kind of guy. And what he does for the community, it’s nonstop.”
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Graves recruited Shaq to join him for an episode of his new TV series Restaurant Recovery, which aims at helping struggling restaurants in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Graves was blown away by Shaq’s business, solution-oriented mind.
“He came in and helped this Cajun family in downtown Baton Rogue. Shaq’s a really intelligent business guy. It was nice to see Shaq come in and talk to the family and find out what their issues were. He made it a sports analogy. He was like, ‘When the game plan changes, a good coach will change their game plan.’ And through that, we discovered that the family had never done marketing. So Shaq went down the line of all the ways you can get free marketing, free social media. And we were able to get radio blitzes and get billboards in town and get some business back immediately.”
Forever legend.
Check out our full interview with Graves below.