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The McDonald's on Olentangy River Road (near the intersection with Ackerman) near my workplace recently built a new location just a few yards away from their original spot. Shortly after the old building was demolished, a new one began to be built. That building became home to a restaurant named "Raising Cane's". Today for lunch I decided to try it out, since I was excited to see a new eating choice so near work. Raising Cane's specializes in chicken fingers. In fact, it's the only thing they serve. No fish sticks, no burgers, no sausage, no ham. Nothing but chicken fingers. Their advertising claims that theirs are the best chicken fingers available - period. The rest of the pitch talks about how they are hand-breaded and fried up only after you order them. The meat is supposedly marinated for 12 hours before cooking, the batter and flour are specially seasoned, etc. From what I've read elsewhere, it's apparently a popular chain in the southern US.
I ordered their "Box Lunch #1" which consisted of 4 chicken fingers, fries, texas toast, cole slaw, and a drink for $5.99. The chicken fingers I received were approximately 6 inches long and about the diameter of a "C" battery including the batter. The strips were fully cooked. The breading is relatively thin and has a very delicate texture to it, with a deep brown color. They definitely look hand-made, since the breading isn't uniformly applied to the chicken. From the first bite, I was simply not impressed. The breading had no discernable flavor. The meat (arguably as it should) tasted like ordinary chicken. I tasted no evidence of the specially seasoned flour or the marinated chicken. In fact, these strips had far less flavor than those produced by Wendy's, BW3, or KFC. The dipping sauce that the restaurant is very proud of is also nothing special. It tastes approximately like Thousand Island salad dressing with a liberal sprinkling of cajun spices in it. You'll find that you do end up dipping the chicken in it quite a bit, though, because that at least gives it some flavor. Raising Cane's is also proud of their fries, which they claim are cut from the finest potatoes. That's as may be, but they still look and taste like typical "crinkle cut" Ore-Ida fries you can buy in a huge bag at Kroger for a couple of bucks. Mine didn't have enough salt on them to suit me, and tasted no better than what you'd get if you followed the directions on a bag of Ore-Ida's and tossed them in the oven. The fries at McDonald's next door are much better, and I don't really like McDonald's.
Next, we come to the cole slaw. This, at least, was good. But then again, it's hard to get cole slaw wrong. Chop up some cabbage and stir in cole slaw dressing and you've pretty much got it. The portion of cole slaw was disappointing. Most places provide ketchup for your french fries in containers that size. I think I got about 4-5 fork fulls out of it. I suppose that considering the government's concern that restaurant portion sizes are causing expanding waistlines in our country, small portions might be a socially responsible thing to provide. Still, it left me wanting more.
Last is the texas toast. My piece looked like a hot dog bun that had been sprayed lightly with garlic butter and slapped onto a grill to brown. There was a subtle but distinct garlic butter flavor to it. My brother (who was with me and had eaten here once before), on the other hand, says it may be the best texas toast he's ever had. After tearing off a couple of bites to try, I ended up giving him the rest of it. It did nothing for me. He gobbled it up. So the texas toast was a hit with one of us. The store at this location is very clean and decently lit. It's reasonably easy to get in and out of the place even at lunch hour. It's in a shopping center with lots of parking. The staff was friendly and nice to us during the visit. The atmosphere, therefore, was quite pleasant overall.
Management at the restaurant, since it's new and different, are understandably proud of it. The manager went around introducing himself and talking up the restaurant to as many patrons as he could. He didn't seem to mind interrupting the one fellow who was intently reading a book, or the couple who were engaged in conversation. It was quite a pitch, too, lasting the better part of thirty minutes to both audiences. Fortunately, my brother and I left the place before he accosted us. (That was quite a trick considering that only 3 tables - including ours - were busy at the height of lunch hour.)
On the whole, Raising Cane's is a dissapointment. For a place that prides itself on its chicken fingers, theirs have no real flavor unless dipped in the sauce, which has a flavor you tire of pretty quickly. The side dishes were nothing spectacular, and the only really good thing in the meal (the cole slaw) came in too small a portion. For $6+, I felt like I didn't get that much food and that it wasn't quite that good. I believe for the same money KFC provides better chicken strips, better (and larger portions of) side dishes, and overall a better value. I don't think I'm alone in this assessment. Usually any new restaurant has people lined out the door to get at the food during its opening week. If it's any good, that pace will continue for weeks or months. This place has been open less than a week and you can already walk in at the height of lunch hour and not be further back than third in line. That says something for customers' opinions of the food and pricing. By contrast, the McDonald's next door, the Applebee's next door, the Subway, Damon's, Bob Evans, Rooster's, Fortune Chinese, etc., all within a 20-second ride of Cane's usually have most or all of their tables full at that time of day. This says to me that folks in our area tend to prefer almost every other nearby restaurant to this one.
On a 1-10 scale, it rates about a 5. That, in my scale, says it's edible but it's nothing I'm in a hurry to eat again. To be fair to the place, I will eat there at least once more in the future, preferably with a number of co-workers whose opinions and observations I can add to the review.
Update 06/03/2006: It's been
suggested by a reader of this blog that I was having a bad day when I
reviewed this site and that I'm way off base in this review. The response I received didn't suggest that the writer felt that the restaurant's food tasted great, it merely claimed that it is a successful chain and therefore it must be good. It also suggested that I am unfair in judging the place based on one visit. THAT is a fair criticism, but I must point out that all the above comments were echoed by my brother that day. It was his SECOND or third visit to the place. A co-worker, who visited a week or so later, also agreed with the above observations and added this point to the mix... "I've never seen anyone who could cook chicken and make it stop tasting like chicken, or anything else!" I stand by this review of Raising Cane's because it represents the opinions of 3 separate individuals with varying tastes who visited the restaurant on multiple occasions.
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