Restaurant Review -- Raising Cane's

Raising Cane's -- Cottleville, MO

Chicken strips. That's all they have.

I imagine that's sufficient information for many of you, so you can stop reading and I won't be offended.

Ok, you can also get a chicken strip sandwich and for sides they have Texas toast, cole slaw, and/or fries, but I don't exaggerate when I tell you that is quite literally all they have.

The chicken strips were good, sure. Not dry or overspiced, which honestly are the only ways you can screw up chicken strips, but who cares, really? They're just freakin' chicken strips. Chicken strips are the macaroni and cheese of chicken. Chicken strips are what kids use to deliver obscenely large globs of ketchup into their mouth-holes (incidentally, my 9-year-old thought Cane's was great). 

The sandwich came with three chicken strips, lettuce, and Cane's sauce, and could also be described as "pretty good I guess." Some pickles and/or tomato would have been nice.

The fries are crinkle cut, and I swear to God all crinkle cut fries must come from the same factory. Cane's, White Castle, school cafeterias, or my own oven; all crinkle cut fries taste the goddamned same: freezerburned. Least in quality of all fries behind regular, curly, steak, seasoned, or just about anything, crinkle cut fries are the chicken strips of potato products.

I did not sample the toast (What the hell's up with that anyway? Of all the random crap to put on your barely-existant menu you picked toast?) or the cole slaw.

The service was friendly enough, but with only one customer ahead of me I had to wait at least five minutes--an eternity at a fast food joint. Granted, I'd rather wait for hot and fresh than be immediately served cold and rubbery but when your menu is shorter than most haikus, how do you not have your items ready at all times?

At this point I think it would help our analysis of this eatery to examine what makes a restaurant successful. A successful restaurant has patrons who come back repeatedly and often, because unless you're in a tourist-heavy area you're not going to get by on curious drop-ins. To make your patrons come back repeatedly and often, you have to have a thing. Maybe your restaurant's thing is that your food is super-low priced (various fast food places), super fast (Jimmy John's, allegedly), healthy (Subway, allegdly), etc. You get the point. 

So what is Cane's thing? The prices? As fast food goes, the prices are average--maybe slightly above. The service? Slow. The food? It was good but with only one item on the menu, "good" isn't sufficient to warrant a repeat visit.

The only thing that could maybe be called Cane's thing is the Cane's sauce. Found on the sandwich or for sale on the side (more on that soon), it tastes like what I imagine Hollandaise sauce should taste like. I've never had Hollandaise sauce though, so I'm probably way off there and I should instead say it tastes like the word "Hollandaise." It's basically a tangy permutation of ketchup. Is it good? Yep. Good enough to be Cane's thing? I'm inclined to say no, especially given the fact that they have the gall to charge you for sides of it. Call me a cheapskate but if all you're serving is fried bird sticks, crinkle fries, and bugger all else, you can at least have the decency to not demand $.30 per unit to add the slightest hint of variety to something I've had better examples of at a hospital cafeteria.

To sum it all up, the one and only time you should go to Cane's is if you're overcome by a sudden craving for chicken strips--and nothing else.

Rating: 2

Rating system:

1 (Poor) - Holy shit, don't eat here.

2 (Mediocre) - Grievances are likely significant. Avoid in most cases.

3 (Average) - Take it or leave it and probably forget it.

4 (Good) - Has definite appeal.

5 (Great) - Any time not spent eating here will be spent thinking up excuses to eat here.

P.S. "Hollandaise" should be what we call mayonnaise made in Holland.