{"id":2755,"date":"2025-09-17T03:49:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T03:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/17\/raising-canes-chicken-fingers-opens-in-ann-arbor\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T03:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T03:49:07","slug":"raising-canes-chicken-fingers-opens-in-ann-arbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/17\/raising-canes-chicken-fingers-opens-in-ann-arbor\/","title":{"rendered":"Raising Cane\u2019s Chicken Fingers opens in Ann Arbor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Inflatable mattresses and tents lined South University Avenue Tuesday morning as students turned the Ann Arbor streets into an overnight campsite for one thing: a plate of fried chicken fingers. By 8 a.m., the corner of South and East University avenues rang with chants as about 250 community members eagerly awaited the grand opening of<a href=\"https:\/\/locations.raisingcanes.com\/mi\/ann-arbor\/1116-s-university-avenue\"> Raising Cane\u2019s Chicken Fingers<\/a>. Those who made it there first had the opportunity to win free Raising Cane\u2019s for a year in a random drawing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The restaurant, a chain which serves a combo of chicken fingers, fries and toasted bread accompanied by a<a href=\"https:\/\/raisingcanes.com\/menu\/canes-sauce\/\"> signature mayonnaise-based pepper sauce<\/a>, is the third of its kind in Michigan after the<a href=\"https:\/\/locations.raisingcanes.com\/mi\/canton\/44218-ford-road\"> Canton<\/a> and<a href=\"https:\/\/locations.raisingcanes.com\/mi\/east-lansing\/301-e-grand-river-ave\"> East Lansing<\/a> locations.<\/p>\n<p>During the opening ceremony, Jessica Baranski, Raising Cane\u2019s area leader of training, presented a model of a cricket to Chloe Warren, the Ann Arbor location\u2019s restaurant leader. Baranski told The Michigan Daily\u00a0 this upheld a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=110243844091&amp;id=18849039091&amp;set=a.110242959091\"> longtime tradition<\/a> honoring the first Raising Cane\u2019s location in Louisiana, founded by Todd Graves in 1996.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey started construction of the first Cane\u2019s, and as they were tearing down a wall, they found an infestation of crickets,\u201d Baranski said. \u201cNot really what you want to find when you\u2019re building a brand new restaurant. But (Graves\u2019) buddy was taking a Chinese mythology class and told him, \u2018Hey, did you know that crickets are actually a sign of good luck, prosperity and fortunes?\u2019 So to represent that, we give every new restaurant their very own cricket to represent good luck and prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Warren said the new location would receive a unique nickname, \u201c40 Acres,\u201d to reflect the history of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe city of Ann Arbor gifted 40 acres for the University to be built right here,\u201d Warren said. \u201cEvery Cane\u2019s gets a nickname, so we are nicknaming ours \u201840 Acres\u2019 since we are on the original 40 acres of land that this University was built on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Engineering junior Noah Lombardo was first in line for the opening. In an interview with The Daily, Lombardo said he is continuing his streak of early attendances at similar events.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve actually had a thing for being the first at fast-food chicken places,\u201d Lombardo said. \u201cA very strange niche, I\u2019ll give you that. But I wanted to be the first here in Ann Arbor. I\u2019ve been to Chick-fil-A, Lee\u2019s Chicken, but this is the first of the Raising Cane\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Daily, Business sophomore Courtney Casey said the restaurant\u2019s location lends itself well to being a place for social gatherings.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really impressed by the amount of seating they have,\u201d Casey said. \u201cIt looks super nice in here. Honestly, a good place to hang out with friends, connect with people. It\u2019s such a convenient location with Ross right there and the Diag. A lot of people live over here in the apartments and high-rises, so I think it\u2019ll be super popular.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Daily, Engineering sophomore Malik Mashlab, who also visited on opening night, said the Ann Arbor location is a much needed late-night dining option on campus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor a lot of walkable students, and students who don\u2019t have cars, it\u2019s going to bring a lot more people to stay on campus,\u201d Mashlab said. \u201cEspecially being open late, since Ann Arbor doesn\u2019t really have a lot of late-night food places, it\u2019s gonna be great for that. If I\u2019m studying at the (Shapiro Undergraduate Library), I\u2019m going to be able to grab some Cane\u2019s late at night, even though it might be 2 a.m.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Daily, Dustin Shearer, Raising Cane\u2019s vice president of company restaurants, said the new location connects to the chain\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingcanes.com\/who-we-are\/\"> roots<\/a> in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, also a college town.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur first location started at a campus, so we\u2019re very passionate about being on a campus,\u201d Shearer said. \u201cThe University of Michigan \u2014 it just felt like the right place to be. We\u2019ve been looking for this place for a couple of years. It\u2019s been a long time coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Shearer said high demand at the location can support social good through fundraising.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe busier we are, the more we can do for the community,\u201d Shearer said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking to partner with anybody that we can to give back to the community by fundraising. And you name it, we do it. So it\u2019s gonna be a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Daily Staff Reporter Thomas Gala-Garza can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/news\/business\/raising-canes-chicken-fingers-opens-in-ann-arbor\/mailto:tmgala@umich.edu\"><em>tmgala@umich.edu<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inflatable mattresses and tents lined South University Avenue Tuesday morning as students turned the Ann Arbor streets into an overnight campsite for one thing: a plate of fried chicken fingers. By 8 a.m., the corner of South and East University avenues rang with chants as about 250 community members eagerly awaited the grand opening of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[242,243,2917,2918,2919,152,2916],"class_list":{"0":"post-2755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-ann","9":"tag-arbor","10":"tag-canes","11":"tag-chicken","12":"tag-fingers","13":"tag-opens","14":"tag-raising"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2757,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions\/2757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}