Raising Cane’s bringing more chicken to Joliet

Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers plans a restaurant outside the Louis Joliet Mall.

The fast-food chicken chain will demolish the Diamand’s family restaurant that shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic and open its restaurant probably by early fall, Joliet Economic Development Director Derek Conley said Friday.

The news of Raising Cane’s plan on Route 30 follows soon after the opening of the Chick-fil-A just up the road. The Chick-fil-A restaurant has had long lines of cars with diners on the go looking for carry-out since its opening on Jan. 14.

The new Chick-fil-A in Joliet continues to draw lines of cars waiting for carry-out on Thursday, Feb. 4, three weeks after it opened. (Bob Okon)

Raising Cane’s has applied for a drive-thru permit that is expected to go to the City Council for a vote on Feb. 16.

The project is not likely to face the delays that occurred with Chick-fil-A, which did not open until nearly two years after news that it was coming to Joliet.

“It’s a much more straightforward plan,” Conley said of the Raising Cane’s project. “The Chick-fil-A had a floodplain issue, and this does not have that.”

Other than that, the two projects have similarities beyond both being fast-food chicken chains with the carry-out feature that has allowed such restaurants to thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic that has been devastating to others including Diamand’s.

Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers will open in 2021 at this site facing Route 30 outside the Louis Joliet Mall in Joliet. (Bob Okon)

The addresses are close: Raising Cane’s will be at 3000 Plainfield Road and Chick-fil-A is at 2705 Plainfield Road. Both redeveloped property formerly occupied by restaurants. Chick-fil-A demolished a Lone Start Steakhouse that closed in 2017. And both have frontage along Route 30 outside the Louis Joliet Mall in a retail district that continues to generate business despite two anchor closing at the mall in recent years.

“That area still actually produces a lot of sales tax for the city of Joliet,” Conley said. “If restaurants see the sales tax numbers we see, I’m sure they would be interested.”

Both restaurants also bring growing, popular chains into Joliet for the first time.

Joliet residents in drive-thru lines on opening day for Chick-fil-A said they were happy to have the restaurant close to home.

“It’s one of my three favorite chicken places,” Amanda Dragisic said that day.

Asked for her other two favorites, Dragisic said Chicken-N-Spice and Raising Cane’s.