Raising Cane’s to open Strip location this year

People have been raising Cain on the Strip for decades. Soon, they’ll be able to do it with a Raising Cane’s, set to open by the end of the year in a location near T-Mobile Arena. The company calls it a “landmark location,” which will be open 24/7.

“Between this killer, two-story location right on Las Vegas Boulevard, the iconic design of this restaurant and our amazing chicken fingers,” said the company’s regional leader of restaurants, Jason Zwerin, “I have no doubt that Caniacs from all over the world are going to make this restaurant one of our biggest successes.”

The wildly popular chicken-fingers brand recently ranked among the country’s 25 fastest-growing chains by Nation’s Restaurant News and Datassential with sales of $1.72 billion, a 17.5 percent year-over-year increase. It was founded in 1996 near the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge by a guy who worked as a boilermaker in Los Angeles and salmon fisherman in Alaska to raise capital after banks wouldn’t give him a loan. He named the company for his yellow Labrador retriever, Raising Cane I, whose sunglasses-adorned photos are featured in the company’s ads. Raising Cane I died in 1998, to be followed by Raising Cane II, 1999-2016, and Raising Cane III, who was born in 2017.

Raising Cane’s is the second national chain to announce recently that it would open new restaurants in the Las Vegas Valley. A&W Root Beer said it has signed agreements with franchisees in five states including Nevada, where real-estate developers Mike Swecker and Alan Perlmutter plan five restaurants within Clark County. A&W currently has one location in the county, in Boulder City. McDonald’s and Taco Bell also have opened two-story landmark locations on the Strip, in 2012 and 2016. The 2015 opening of White Castle at Casino Royale on the Strip drew crowds so large the restaurant was forced to temporarily shut down simply to clean and re-stock.

Joseph Lema, instructor and chairman of the food and beverage and event-management department at UNLV, said it’s not surprising that fast-food, quick-service and fast-casual restaurants have been on the rise here.

“It’s been happening even before COVID got here,” Lema said. “People want speed, and they want control over their experience. You order from your phone or at the counter, eat in or get grab-and-go. You can do it on your terms.”

Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at Hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Follow @HKRinella on Twitter.