Cedar Rapids Chicken Restaurant Delays Opening to 2021

Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers plans a groundbreaking on a Cedar Rapids restaurant in early 2021, according to the Gazette.

It will be on the old Ryan's Family Steakhouse property which it acquired in September of 2019. It had been set for an opening in the Fall of 2020 which did not come to pass.

So what's been taking so long? Besides the pandemic, Justin Jones, the CEO of Southern Hospitality Ventures, which owns Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers says "a number of other priorities" have delayed the demolition and reconstruction of the new restaurant.

The location sits on a 2 & 1/2-acre lot at 230 Collins Road NE and while Jones said they were initially looking to lease out part of the property, Raising Cane's will now be the sole owner and tenant. Their target opening date is in the Fall of 2021, but Jones is optimistic it could happen in late summer.

The restaurant will staff 6 full-time managers, 60 employees and be open daily for lunch and dinner with indoor, outdoor seating and service as well as drive-thru. The outdoor seating will reportedly be canopied by an overhead door.

They've already got locations in Altoona, Cedar Falls, Davenport and West Des Moines and, in addition to Cedar Rapids, future Iowa restaurants are imagined in Coralville, Dubuque, Iowa City as well as two more Quad Cities locations.

Ryan's has been closed since at least 2017 in Cedar Rapids, according to CBS2, but it sure seems like longer than that! We look forward to welcoming a new restaurant into the prime shopping and dining sections of Cedar Rapids very soon.