Early last month, Raising Cane’s opened a freestanding (with drive-thru) location on Island Ave at the Penrose Plaza. I visited to check out the building, the décor and the delicious chicken tenders!
Raising Cane’s has several locations under development in South Jersey including Cherry Hill, Marlton, Deptford, Washington Township and more!
So I thought I’d head over to Philadelphia to this new free-standing unit to get a preview of what we should expect in South Jersey.
Update: I made a mistake with this report in that Penrose Plaza is NOT the first free-standing Philadelphia Raising Cane’s… Trevose PA opened one in the spring! My bad, and I should’ve caught this.
But I got a little bit of a surprising twist with my Philadelphia visit, as I think this new Philadelphia location has a different design that what we are getting at our upcoming South Jersey stores.
The Penrose Plaza Raising Cane’s is set up with a dinning area within a dining area! An all-season dining area, and an large “wrap-around” patio with roll-up garage door style full windows.
Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers
If you aren’t familiar, Raising Cane’s is a chicken finger restaurant with a cult-like following in other parts of the country. They are to chicken fingers, what In-And-Out is to burgers!
Fans really love their chicken fingers and Cane’s Sauce… calling themselves “Caniacs”!
While there are several locations open in Philadelphia, the Penrose Plaza location is the one of the first free-standing stores in the area… and as of today none of the upcoming South Jersey locations are open.
Based on construction progress, Marlton on Rt 70 is likely to be the first Raising Cane’s to open in South Jersey. More on that later this week!
I also took video of this new location with a fancy new camera that I picked up over the summer and I hope to have that online tomorrow.
Raising Cane’s Penrose Plaza
The new Raising Cane’s Chicken Finger restaurant in Philadelphia opened in the Penrose Plaza on Island Ave, which is very close to the Philadelphia airport
So close in fact that when I tried to get drone images of the new building, and even from a very low height of 50 feet I was getting alerts from the approval application that I needed to have an advanced 72-hour approval from the FAA… Which is a warning I hadn’t seen before!
The new Raising Cane’s unit is at the main entrance to the shopping center, developed on a property which previously was home to a classic Taco Bell store (which was demolished).
As mentioned this Island Ave. raising canes has a more unique design with what I’m calling a store within a store, where there is a smaller all=season indoor dining area and then extending beyond that on two walls is a wrap-around outer patio area with roll up garage windows.
The outside of the building features the signature Raising Cane’s signage and a large “One Love” slogan sign.
This location also features a small fully outdoor patio area.
Inside the restaurant is the main dining and counter area of course.
Directly above the ordering counter is another “One Love” logo sign
The style of the building is a modern industrial look, which offers a portion of wall which is brick faced, and an exposed beam raised ceiling.
The brick wall has the very signature Raising Cane’s graphic where it looks like a hole has been punched through the wall (anyone see the Kool-Aid man?!) and the Raising Cane’s logo rests in the middle of the opening.
The space offers a variety of seating options including booth and table seating, as well as a front segment of high-top tables.
The design of those high top tables are interesting because while they are a permanently mounted in a single row, they are designed to appear as if they are an eclectic mixture of tables.
A really cool and interesting feature is there are not one… but THREE mirrored disco balls in the space, and yes the little light refractions are bouncing all around the room!
Music can be heard inside the dining area, which hopefully doesn’t cause me problems with my video that I took! ha!
So they are trying to make the dining experience a fun one!
Raising Cane’s : Ordering and Menu
The restaurant ordering menus are digital display screens which have very large images showing what the food is all about, particularly the combos.
If you’re unfamiliar with Raising Cane’s they really have a simple menu. They focus on a few things and they try to excel in that space
As an example when folks say that they are another chicken restaurant, it’s actually more focused than that as their only main product is store made battered and fried chicken fingers!
Now they do offer a variety of things to go along with that of course of course store cut french fries.
They also have signature Raising Cane’s items such as their Cane’s Sauce which people are crazy about! In fact they have no other sauce choices in the restaurant… No BBQ, no honey mustard. Only Cane’s Sauce!
They also have Texas toast which is lightly buttered and garlic toasted bread.
Cane’s also offers a tasty coleslaw.
Overall much of the menu is very traditional to other chicken restaurant offerings, except they really do just stick to tenders at Raising Cane’s!
This is now the second time I’ve had them, and I am a fan! The tenders are tender with a light crispy coating, and flavorful.
The Cane’s sauce has a slight tang to it and not overly strong.
Probably the best way to experience Raising Cane’s is to just order one of the combos which gives you a variety of all the items I just mentioned.
Raising Cane’s – Penrose: Dining Room Inside a Dining Patio
As mentioned, my plan for this Philadelphia Raising Cane’s visit was to get a preview of what we could be seeing soon in South Jersey.
But the new Philadelphia location has a unique and distinctive dining room set-up that I dont believe we will see in South Jersey. Well at least for Cherry Hill or Marlton.
But the décor, food and drive-thru experience should be very similar!
So for Raising Cane’s Penrose, here is an interior restaurant with an all-season dining area.
What’s unquiet about the design is, extending beyond the dining area on two sides of the building is another large “L-shaped” seating area… wrapping around the interior dining space!
The extended dining area is setup like a large patio seating area, but it has four large glass “garage-door” style full wall windows which they can open and closed to change the dining experience depending on the weather.
Mild warm weather they can open the space up to the outside. Cooler weather they can close those garage doors and protect guests from the weather.
It’s a configuration that is becoming more popular with bars in South Jersey, yet this is a quick-serve chicken finger restaurant!
There is even a garage door between the inside dining area and that wrap-around patio area!
It’s a really innovative design that I’ve never seen in fast-food restaurant.
It seems though that for the South Jersey stores that are under development, the few renderings I’ve seen don’t offer the same wrap-around patio design, and meeting minutes do not indicate the garage door walls.
Plus in Marlton the walls are already going up, and the framed walls do not appear to support this garage door patio design.
Raising Cane’s : Drive-Thru
All that that being said, I imagine a lot of the design elements are expected to be similar in South Jersey.. such as the dual lane drive-thru and canopies.
It seems that all fast food restaurants in these years after the pandemic have changed up their drive-hru plans to accommodate more cars coming through the drive-thru, and where they can… offer dual lanes.
In fact, many of our area fast food restaurants which have been around for decades are now being remodeled to accommodate the larger drive-thru configuration.
With Raising Cane’s being new in the area they were able to develop their dual-lane drive-thrus right from the start.
In the case of this Penrose Plaza location it means dual drive-thru lanes all the way through, although as you get to the payment window it appears the restaurant has the have the option to then merge the two ordering lanes into one payment lane.
They’ve also included large overhead canopies, so that while you were ordering from the menu boards, or paying and receiving your food… your car is protected from rain and snow when you have your car window down
The menu board ordering area at the Penrose Plaza Raising Cane’s is actually very large, even covering the drive-thru lanes as the cars turn towards the building.
Links and Location
Raising Cane’s – Penrose Plaza
3000 Island Ave Unit A,
Philadelphia, PA 19153
Sun-Thu: 10:00 AM – 12:00 AM
Fri-Sat: 10:00 AM – 1:00 AM
Phone: +1 267-742-3670
42Freeway Most Recent Raising Cane’s
- June 27, 2023: Washington Township
- June 26, 2023: Deptford (Don Pablos) Demo Started
- March 2, 2023: Glassboro Expected
- March 10, 2023: Raising Cane’s Cherry Hill (And Chick-Fil-A)
Marlton Location: Construction Images (View from Evesham: Facebook)