Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers

Minneapolis, MN

I've been about a week behind on these things so I will try to catch up.

On the last day of May, the wife and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and do some outdoor activities at The U. We needed to get some lunch first. My wife wanted to go to Raising Cane's. She had been there before. I had not.

There are 3 locations in the Twin Cities area. This one is right on Washington Avenue on the campus of the University of Minnesota. They essentially have 4 items on the menu, which are basically 3, 4, and 6 finger meals and a chicken finger sandwich meal. It's just chicken fingers, fries, coleslaw, and toast. The chicken fingers are made fresh when you order them and come out to you extremely hot. We both ordered The Box, which is 4 fingers, fries, coleslaw, Texas toast, and a thing of Cane's sauce. We were informed that we could substitute items so we both got another thing of sauce instead of the coleslaw.

It only took a few minutes before our food was ready. The first thing we did was try to tear open the fingers so they could cool faster, but that was hard enough to do because of how hot they were. Eventually they cooled down to a tolerable level. The chicken fingers were very moist, not dried out in the least, and the breading (or batter... probably) was very light yet crispy and very good. These chicken fingers weren't overwhelmed with a thick, hard breading. I don't think I could name any better chicken fingers that I've had. The fries were your standard crinkle cut fries. The Cane's sauce is also tasty. Although, I liked it better on the fries than on the chicken. The chicken was so good that it would be a shame to use too much sauce on them, so I would lightly dip them. It goes really well on fries. The Texas toast is pretty awesome too; buttery and clearly toasted on a flattop. I recommend this place for any chicken finger cravings... or Texas toast cravings.

The story behind the place is pretty neat. The founder submitted the business plan for a chicken finger restaurant for a class assignment in college and got a bad grade on it. His professor didn't think it would work and the banks weren't too thrilled about it either. He then worked as a boilermaker in L.A. and a salmon fisherman in Alaska after that to raise the money for it. He opened his first place at LSU and it was an instant success.