Raising Cane’s is a fast food chicken finger restaurant entering South Jersey with six locations planned. Four locations are under construction, and on a quiet Sunday morning I visited them all to check on construction progress.
My travels this morning had me in Burlington Township, Marlton, Cherry Hill and Deptford.
I’ve written more than a few articles on Raising Cane’s coming to South Jersey, and I even visited two locations in Philadelphia, to share the experience with readers.
Before we dive into the updates, the short summary of Raising Cane’s is… they are a fresh chicken tender restaurant with a cult-like following in other parts of the country. Their menu is very simple… literally chicken tenders are their only entree, but of course they have side dishes including French fries, coleslaw, Texas toast and their signature Cane’s sauce.
Their restaurants have a distinctive fun style and many even feature mirrored “disco” balls! To learn more about Raising Cane’s give my July post a read where I visited the Island Ave location and share the experience.
The Raising Cane’s locations planned for South Jersey (in order of approval and construction)
- Burlington Township (Burlington County)
- Evesham/Marlton (Burlington County)
- Cherry Hill (Camden County)
- Deptford (Gloucester County)
- Washington Twp (Gloucester County)
- Glassboro (Gloucester County) UPDATE: Oct Planning Meeting Postponed. Likely November 8
The first four locations are actively under construction right now, and those are the locations I visited this morning.
Washington Township has been approved but no activity has started yet. The Glassboro location just went to Planning Board last week but I haven’t had a chance to contact the clerk to see if it was approved or not.
Raising Cane’s – Burlington Township
The Burlington Township Raising Cane’s is being developed on Mount Holly Rd. (Route 541), in the area of the former Burlington Center Mall.
Since I really haven’t written anything about this location I’ll give a few extra details on the location.
The Burlington Center Mall was completely demolished and in its place a development called The Crossings is being developed.
The new development features large warehouses on a portion of the property, and then separately the Shops at The Crossings is being developed which will feature several restaurants and stores on the front roadway, and other projects for the rear portion of the parcel including a possible hotel.
I’ll have another post specific to what’s going on with this larger former Burlington Center Mall property, but I will add for now, that along the same road frontage as Raising Cane’s they are also adding a Panera Bread, a Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, and other retail stores.
The Burlington Raising Cane’s is situated at the corner of Mount Holly Rd. and Bromley Blvd… Bromley being the roadway which on the other side has a large shopping center featuring Dick’s Sporting Goods, Target, Kohl’s and Home Depot.
An interesting thing about the placement of this Raising Cane’s location is it sits in the corner of the intersection, which previously was unusable lands because it was part of a circular plot created by a large U-Turn roadway for traffic.
We’ve all seen hundreds of pieces of land “islands” at exits off of highways where a large parcel of land is left in the middle, and is basically undevelopable.
Well the developers of this Shops at The Crossings apparently received approval to reconfigure that circular U-shaped roadway into a rectangular based one, which then provided the ability to develop two retail buildings in that space.
This Burlington Raising Cane’s store was the first to be approved, the first to start development, and likely the first location to open in South Jersey.
In fact this store is already at the point where full exterior is complete, and the signage is up for the store including the cute “Cane” dog that is their mascot for the restaurant!
The parking lot is fully paved and lined. For the most part this chicken tender restaurant looks close to being ready to go.
While there is a roofed patio space, it does not appear that Burlington will have the all-season “windowed garage door” feature for the patio.
Raising Cane’s – Marlton
Next up in approval and construction for Raising Cane’s in South Jersey is the Marlton location, which is being developed on Route 70 next to the Republic Bank. Almost directly across Route 70 is the former Marlton Diner property, which is being remodeled into a cannabis dispensary
The Marlton Raising Cane’s property previously housed a 2-story office building which was demolished for the construction.
For the Marlton construction they have moved on to finishing most of the exterior covering including red brick, stonework at the bottom, and are now adding exterior stucco.
Windows are in place as well as the drive-thru canopies. The menu ordering canopies in Marlton seem extra high, and I wonder if that is due to a slight slope in the property.
While the parking lot is not paved, the curbing is in place as are several vintage style parking lot lampposts.
Surprisingly, during my early Sunday morning visit there were several PSE&G trucks working on electrical lines adjacent to the new restaurant, which I can only assume were efforts to run electricity into the new restaurant building.
Raising Cane’s – Cherry Hill
Third in line with approvals and construction starting for Raising Cane’s in South Jersey, is a Cherry Hill location… also along Route 70.
This Cherry Hill location is being developed at the Garden State Park retail complex, and will be situated in front of the Wegmans shopping center.
For more context on the location, this Raising Cane’s is being developed at the front of the shopping center in an area which was previously parking spaces… situated next to a former Chick-fil-A location!
As I recently reported, that Chick-fil-A has now closed and relocated 1/2 mile up the road to a brand new freestanding location.
As you would expect the Cherry Hill Raising Cane’s is a little bit further behind in construction than Marlton, but in my visit Sunday morning I can see they’ve already started work on the exterior coverings including brickwork and stonework.
Windows and exterior doors are in place, and again the signature steel outdoor patio roof is also in place.
So again it appears that this is going to be an outside only patio because I don’t see a doorway which leads from the patio area directly into the restaurant, like I did at the Philadelphia Island Avenue location.
One thing I did notice different about the Cherry Hill building is it has two Gable roof sections which Burlington and Marlton do not have.
Basically at the two entrances there’s a squarish tower type aspect, and in those section for Cherry Hill you can see the pyramid style hip-roof on top. Maybe that was done only in Cherry Hill to better match the architecture of the Garden State Park shopping center
Raising Cane’s – Deptford
To me the biggest surprise is the Deptford Raising Cane’s location as it really seems to be moving very fast after getting a much delayed start.
The Deptford Raising Cane’s is on the site of a former Don Pablo ‘s restaurant, in the shopping center which also is home to target and BJ’s Warehouse.
Not only was Deptford the fourth location to go for Planning Board approval (December of last year) but the also needed to demolish the Don Pablo’s building first.
And it seems they aren’t too far behind the Cherry Hill project.
If you haven’t driven through that area in Deptford you’ll probably be surprised at the state of the Raising Cane’s as basically the full building structure including the steel patio area are in place.
Following the theme of all these properties falling in place in order, while there’s significant progress at the Deptford store they are at the stage now where they are just finishing the exterior wood sheeting. The steel patio structure is also in place.
Deptford seems just a bit behind Cherry Hill, which seems just a bit behind Marlton, which seems just a bit behind Burlington.
Another thing I noticed is that while it’s probably still too early to determine, it appears to me that the Deptford Raising Cane’s restaurant is actually smaller than the others, despite probably having the larger piece of property for the store to be developed on.
Well, we’ll have to wait and see… but my bet is the Deptford location ends up being the number one revenue store for Raising Cane’s in South Jersey!
Washington Township and Glassboro
As mentioned, Washington Twp and Glassboro were the last two Raising Cane’s locations that they looked to get approval for.
Some folks are already messaging me “what’s going on with Raising Cane’s in Washington Township”
It’s only been about two months since Washington Township was approved, so it makes sense that they haven’t started construction yet. Commercial development projects require more approvals than a homeowner remodeling a kitchen, and the lead time to start any commercial project is typically much longer.
Heck, just use Wawa as a baseline… and how long it can take for one of those locations to get started development!
Plus the other Raising Cane’s locations were 6 months to a year before they started development.
Lastly… the company can likely only develop so many at one time. It’s actually impressive that there are four under development at once, and likely they already “have their hands full”. The probably have preferred contractors who do a great job at fair prices, and even the contractors can only do so much at once!
For Glassboro their location was scheduled for Planning less than a week ago but they postponed it… they are expected in the November Planning Meeting.
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