The signs are now up at the new building under construction at 1902 Westheimer Rd., across the street from the Winlow Westheimer shopping center. And they say: Raising Cane’s. And that means your center-of-Montrose drive-thru chicken finger spot will be opening very soon. Raising Cane’s is no stranger to Westheimer; the new restaurant will mark Raising Cane’s fourth location on the street (it’s got the 12201, 7531, and 5015 spots already). But this’ll be the first one inside the Loop.
More pics of Lower Westheimer’s fast-food future:
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The offices of real estate firm Martha Turner Properties were torn down on this site in 2008.
- Previously on Swamplot: Raising Cane’s Putting Its Chicken Fingers on Westheimer Again, This Time at Hazard; Corner of Hazard: The Fall of Martha Turner Properties
Photos:Â Anika Metyko
Montrose Drive-Thrus
Gross.
The one on westheimer is not that good it is just decent. The first time I went there the food and sauce was really good. Next time I went food still good sauce not the same as before. Last time I went everything was only half the quality has the first time. This place is still worth going at least once
awesome, believe it or not i’m actually excited for this and glad that I’ll never have another reason to ever go to the KFC on fairview.
This is still so disappointing. I guess it’s better than a vacant lot… but not by much.
A sad view. I always hoped that this corner would become a nucleus of urban street life in Montrose which would eventually connect with other such nuclei (Westheimer-Dunlavy) to establish something resembling a walkable urban network.
What we got instead is cars, parking lots and chicken fingers.
Seems like they’re trying to jump onto the gravy train here in Montrose, but I don’t think they have the secret sauce the area needs. This area may be hot but I think they’re going to get burnt on this location. Although perhaps I’m just a big chicken and they’re more plucky, They’ll be cock of the walk and get to crow their success if and when it happens, in the face of all the chicken littles.
what a trashy addition to the neighborhood. belongs somewhere on hwy 6.
You folks are nuts. Raising Cane’s is delicious, and it has ground floor retail.
@Christian
No, it is not better than a parking lot. A parking lot has potential.
I meant “vacant lot”.
Haters gonna hate. I had Cane’s last night for dinner, and it was delightfully trashy. I washed it down with a Shipley’s donut. Best $9 I spent this week.
Wtf? Dislike!
Concrete and fried chicken . . . . whats not to like? This will be the death of the magnificent old
oak tree on the side street. They’ll fold after about 3.5 years.
I find it hard to believe this location will pay off for them, given how much I’m sure they paid for the dirt. And if they’re counting on Lanier kids coming over for lunch, they’ll be sad; HISD does not allow middle school students to leave campus during the day without being signed out by an adult.
@Vonnegan
I think this location actually makes a lot of sense for Cane’s. Whatever the merits of its food, Cane’s is an institution in Louisiana, especially for college kids at LSU and UL-Lafayette. Thousands of those same kids relocate to Midtown apartment complexes every year and will on occasion have alcohol-fueled late-night chicken cravings. [Not so] coincidentally, this Cane’s will be open until 3:30 AM Thursday-Sunday, making it the only late-night Cane’s in town. Sounds like a smart business plan to me, even if will seem like a missed opportunity to many.
They can keep their antibiotic laced and factory farmed chicken. Although, it is better for the earth than eating factory farmed beef, i.e. a lower carbon footprint, but I’m not sure the chickens would care about that.
And the prices of those two crappy town homes next door keep falling:
http://m.realtor.com/#details?property_id=8512270751
Listen, if a damn Kolache Factory can stay open for 15+ years just a block away, this place is going to thrive. Plus, where else in this area can you get chicken fingers to go that isn’t one of the top tier fast food chains? You’d have to go out to Chick Fil A off 59 near Kirby, and nobody’s gonna do that with this place around. Bottom line, it’s fast food in Houston, it has a 90% chance of surviving. I am 90% sure of this statistic.
I’m shocked by the dystopian world so many here desire, where anyone inside the loop who wants some delicious chicken fingers is forced to drive to the periphery of the city. Y’all really don’t eat Cane’s? Or is this just a knee jerk reaction to plebeian food?
Live one block away, going on 20yrs, that block has always been off limits, broken sidewalk, etc. I prefer something to be there, and with the real estate as hot as it is, anything there has to be profitable, or its gone. Looking forward to trying it at least once.
Another one is under construction on Dairy Ashford just south of I-10 between Sonic and the now closed Chinese Buffet. It seems to the the business model these days, open 15 stores at once. Many then seem to pull out all together. On a sad note, I see Bennigan’s is back, up on I45. Yikes.
i just find it funny that nobody speaks ill of the restaurant opening on the empty lot just down the road past dunlavy in the post immediately below this one, but plenty of complaints abound on this restaurant opening up on an empty lot. sorry all, but us poor middle class folks would like to eat out and enjoy a guilty pleasure every now and then too and some of us do live in the montrose whether you like it or not.
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i’m sure everyone’s complaints are going to be in regards to “curbside appeal”, but this building is entirely consistent with the retail-industrial-complex at the shepherd/westheimer intersection that is within clear eyesight from this location.
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just like all the other fast food restaurants on westheimer that are clogged after school gets out with the housewife wagons, i’m sure this one will be as well.
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anyone placing odds that this place will service more residents and last longer than the new Edmont to be opening up?
Zaxby’s is 10x better. Cane’s is horrible.
Besides the ugly ass suburban building and parking lot, and the totally missed opportunity to create something that befits the area (like the Paulies/Camerata building just a couple block away); Cane’s food sucks. I’ve been 3X, twice to the one in the Galleria, and once to one way out Westheimer. Awful, flavorless, bland. I can forgive almost anything from a restaurant, except crappy food. The Frenchy’s near UH/TSU is a total dump, but the food is fantastic. Looks like I’ll keep getting my chicken fingers (and awesome mashed potatoes with chicken gravy) from Funky Chicken on Yale.
@Memebag/joel -What I don’t get is how so many people here go on and on about Montrose losing its identity. Montrose stopped being affordable a long time ago, and even in the past 5 years, it barely looks like itself. I rarely ate out when I lived there (on Fairview near Dunlavy) because it was so damned expensive. Dinner anywhere would cost at least $15 with tax and tip. Every now and then, I’d like an unhealthy dinner that was cheap and closeby.
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Everyone pissed and moaned about the Walmart being built on Yale. I’ve bought paper towels, to Cappucino Lays (gross btw), to a drying dish rack there; the parking lot is nearly always full, so people are shopping there. While we’re at it, let’s be real now: where else am I going to buy these things? Not all grocery stores carry everything you need household-wise, and these individual small businesses ceased existing a looooong time ago. (And Target isn’t that much better than Walmart. Speaking of which, do people think that the Sawyer Heights shopping center was detrimental to the redevelopment of the First Ward?)
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Not everybody shops at big box stores but many people do. The same goes for fast food. They’re all “whatever,” until someone dares to build one in their beloved neighborhood. Who knew that Raising Cane’s could ruin the very fabric of Montrose society by building a chicken joint on an empty lot. Maybe it would be more acceptable if it were a Chick-fil-a. (Of course Heights residents never eat there.)
Just think of it like Torchy’s – imported sentiment with a build in customer base
“built-in customer base
If you want chicken fingers in Montrose, Rudz has great chicken fingers and they have beer. I bet Cane’s doesn’t have beer.
I could care less whether it is a Kane’s or some other fast food place. What I don’t like is the site plan and how it is surrounded on four sides by a parking lot that will never be full. If it were close to the street similar to a lot of the buildings on this stretch of Westheimer with more parking on the back or even some green space, it would be less obtrusive. It certainly has not hindered McDonalds down the street to have much less parking.
Open until 3:30 AM Thursday-Sunday = HPD magnet. This place may be successful, but the drunks will stay away in droves. (Don’t believe me? Just count the cruisers near the Farnham Whatburger on weekend nights.)
It’s true Cane’s is a Southern Louisiana tradition. I was never all that fond of it, it’s menu is not exactly varied. Uh, and I hardly think “thousands” of kids from LSU and LSU-Lafayette flock to mid town every year. The vast majority of LSU graduates stay in Louisiana. As for this location, I’m sure it will thrive, but I agree it could have been sited on it’s lot better.
@Jon
August 19, 2014 at 5:53 pm
Besides the ugly ass suburban building and parking lot, and the totally missed opportunity to create something that befits the area (like the Paulies/Camerata building just a couple block away); Cane’s food sucks. I’ve been 3X, twice to the one in the Galleria, and once to one way out Westheimer. Awful, flavorless, bland. I can forgive almost anything from a restaurant, except crappy food. The Frenchy’s near UH/TSU is a total dump, but the food is fantastic. Looks like I’ll keep getting my chicken fingers (and awesome mashed potatoes with chicken gravy) from Funky Chicken on Yale.
You hipster on you hipster!
Those of you defending this–people are complaining because it’s ugly, single use, set far back from the curb, overloaded with space dedicated to cars and not pedestrian friendly, it’s a big chain which serves bad food, and oh yeah, did I mention it’s ugly?
But why does it have to be so ugly?
My wife and I were forced to eat Canes at a party and we both vomited all night (Westheimer and Hillcroft location). Not sure if it was food poisoning or the fact that we just eat damn healthily and our bodies rejected the antibiotics and hormones and grease and fat. I lived in Montrose for years and the Wendy’s always had people in it –so will this one. Eating out is expensive even at a “cheap” place like this, and Canes is accessible to middle class folks—plus single men, even efete ones often grab secret fast food while girlfriends are away. Plus the drunk douches will flock here. No doubt about it, if you eat this stuff you will get sick and fat, instead you should eat veggies, whole grains and grilled chicken. However if you make $8 an hour how the hell will you do that? If you can afford to eat healthy and you still eat here, that’s okay too, but fried food may cause impotence and the estrogen may grow man boobs.
Guys, it’s a fast food fried chicken joint. It exudes the same amount of charm as the 3 story townhouses next door.
Cane’s in Baton Rouge is good. Cane’s on Westheimer and Voss is nasty. I’m sure this one will be subpar as well.
I had hopes for a midrise with a ground floor restaurant….
Re aesthetics: It looks fine to me. No uglier Han the McDonalds down the street, or the Jack in the Box on Montrose. Prettier than the strip center where Specs and Half Price Books are (with the giant empty place where Blockbuster used to be).
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All I can conclude is that some of you don’t actually look at Montrose. You project your fantasy architecture on top of it. This Cane’s is not out of place.
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Re quality: The Cane’s in Sugar Land is always good. Some of the others not so much. Maybe Montrose will get lucky.
@coconutbutter: Complaints about Montrose losing its identity are apparently tradition. Swamplot posted a link to this just earlier this year:
http://www.houstoniamag.com/travel-and-outdoors/houston/articles/lamenting-the-death-of-montrose-is-an-old-game-march-2014
Its not the food or the product, but the looks of the building. It just does not fit in the neighborhood. There are other places along lower Westheimer that I won’t eat at, but none of those locations stick out as so sterile/commercial. This building design belongs in someone’s parking lot, such as Randall’s, not as a stand alone. If they had taken a clue from the little strip center across the street and designed it with a little character it would of been better. They need to heavily landscape this tract, as it will stick out like a sore thumb.
Lot’s of Finger-Lickin’ Good elitism to be found here.
If you really look at the building, it resembles a typical three story town home shrunk and widened to one level. Even the arched facade mimics the town home in the background. And let’s face, the neighborhood behind it is rapidly becoming a majority town home area if it isn’t already. So maybe it does resemble the neighborhood after all. Memebag has a point.
If you seriously look at Montrose, it is just a polyglot of everything. A lot of it is butt ugly but the trees and grown out landscaping obscure it. My neighborhood and its adjacents are filled with homes, apartments, offices, etc… spanning 90 years of different styles and much of it is seemingly incompatible if viewed as a single entity. That is Montrose. It ain’t The Woodlands!
It isn’t about Cane’s. It’s about the site plan. I actually like Cane’s My ex is an LSU guy and he got me hooked on it.
Heck ya. Love me my some bready, crunchy, fatty, greasy chicken! Their sodas waters are da bomb. Looking forward to parking my ford in their lot every week and leaving my trash on da curb. MMMM HMMM. 230ammr after all nighter at buffalo wild wingz watching sportz. Chicken Chikken!
WHAAAAA!!!!!
At least it does have first floor retail! I wish they would have designed the building to better fit the neighborhood…..have it closer to the sidewalk, parking in the back, patio in the front, etc. instead of the regular design they’d put on FM 1960 or Hwy. 6.
@Walker: How does a parking lot on Westheimer NOT fit that neighborhood? Randall’s has a giant parking lot. So do Goodwill, Brown Bag Deli, RMS, Slick Willie’s, Erotic Cabaret, Theo’s and every other strip center along Westheimer. I used to live down the street, near where Pistolero’s is now, which used to be Union Jack. Both had parking lots on Westheimer.
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Seriously, what neighborhood are you folks looking at?
In the sense of the dominant pattern of what’s been built along Westheimer in the last 45 years, this fits right in. In fact, the ugly strip mall at Montrose and Westheimer, with parking in front, was originally built in the 1930s, so you could go back even longer.
That said, it appears that many on this board find that it doesn’t fit in with the design of development that would underpin their vision of Westheimer. And while I can agree on that issue, it should be noted that Westheimer still has a default rule of a 25-foot setback, and putting in a sidewalk-oriented building would likely require a variance; your average retail developer isn’t interested in doing that.
In-town continues to become suburbanized, shipping-away at the uniqueness.
So, they finally tore down that cute old gas station/cum coffee shop/cum nail salon?
Perhaps leaving my Hazard/W. Alabama neighborhood was for the best.
Probably one of my most favorite chicken-fried headlines Swamplot has had in a while. Ha!