On Saturday, Dec 10, local media outlet 42 Freeway reported that Raising Cane’s, the rapidly growing Louisiana-based chicken finger joint, has an official site plan for its proposed location at 1860 Deptford Center Rd in Woodbury, NJ and that a meeting with the city’s planning board could happen early next year.
Dustin Shearer, vice president of area restaurants for Raising Cane’s was not immediately available to provide further comment.
According to 42 Freeway, which first broke the story back in August before too many details had emerged, the new restaurant, if approved, would not only take over a former Don Pablo’s that closed in 2019 but also require a full-scale demolition of the property.
What’s more, the proposal aligns with an announcement earlier this year that the company would be opening some 20 new restaurants throughout the region, as What Now Philadelphia reported at the time.
Founded in Baton Rouge in 1996 by the uncompromising entrepreneur Todd Graves, Raising Cane’s now has more than 600 locations across the country. However, that success was not without its doubters.
According to Graves’ story on the company’s official website, Raising Cane’s “began as a college dream” which was parlayed into an assignment for Graves’s business course that, “ironically, earned the lowest grade in the class. The professor said a restaurant serving only chicken fingers in South Louisiana would never work.”
Since then, Graves has gone on to not only build a chicken empire but also earn wide acclaim, with such accolades as the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, SCORE Award for Outstanding Socially Progressive Business, Restaurateur of the Year by Louisiana Restaurant Association, and Louisianan of the Year by Louisiana Life.
