Chapel Hill openings & closings, plus how to get a free year of Raising Cane’s chicken

Tammy Grubb
·4 min read

It will be interesting to see whether the line for fried chicken fingers at the new Raising Cane’s on Franklin Street will be longer than the line of people waiting to vote in Chapel Hill on Election Day.

“Caniacs” have waited over two years to see Raising Cane’s launch its downtown Chapel Hill location. The store at 101 E. Franklin St. opens Nov. 7 with a “Lucky 20” drawing that will give 20 customers free chicken fingers for a year, spokeswoman Hannah Henderson said in an email. Customers must be 18 or older to win.

The company is excited to be opening in another “iconic college town,” Henderson told The News & Observer.

“Historically, college students love us, and now we can’t wait to show UNC students what our ONE LOVE — craveable chicken finger meals — is all about,” she said.

Raising Cane’s has been working to get the Brockwell building at the corner of Franklin and Columbia streets ready since early 2021. The building previously housed Spanky’s, which closed after 40 years in 2018, and then Lula’s restaurant, which the Chapel Hill Restaurant Group opened in late 2018 and closed in mid-2020 during the COVID shutdown.

Construction workers take a lunch break on Oct. 11, 2023, at the new Raising Cane’s location on East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. The long-awaited restaurant will open Nov. 7, company officials said.
Construction workers take a lunch break on Oct. 11, 2023, at the new Raising Cane’s location on East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. The long-awaited restaurant will open Nov. 7, company officials said.

In December 2021, Raising Cane’s Restaurants LLC paid nearly $3.9 million for the building, which includes a Starbucks, The N&O has reported. The renovations were extensive, with the interior gutted and rebuilt.

The roughly 5,500-square-foot restaurant will have a few seats on the first floor, with the rest for food prep, checking out and picking up, and an elevator to the second floor, which extends into the space above Starbucks. Roughly 100 seats are approved, including eight for sidewalk dining.

Raising Cane’s stores are generally open from 10 a.m. to late night.

“We built a beautiful, non-traditional Raising Cane’s that fully embraces and represents Chapel Hill in cool, unique ways,” Henderson said about the Franklin Street location. “It’s a multi-level restaurant, so getting to a place where we are ready to open has taken a little longer than expected.”

Only two other Raising Cane’s restaurants are in North Carolina, at Camp Lejeune and East Carolina University, but the company that started at Louisiana State University in 1996 has several hundred other locations nationwide.

A neon signboard will light the way for “caniacs” looking to get some late-night fried chicken fingers from the new Raising Cane’s location at 101 E. Franklin St. in Chapel Hill.
A neon signboard will light the way for “caniacs” looking to get some late-night fried chicken fingers from the new Raising Cane’s location at 101 E. Franklin St. in Chapel Hill.

More openings & closings

▪ Snooze Chapel Hill will hold a soft opening Nov. 3-5 at its newest location near The Loop in the Eastgate Crossing shopping center, 1800 E. Franklin St. Snooze is a nationally branded breakfast chain with an emphasis on sustainably sourced ingredients.

Customers will receive a free breakfast, including one entree and non-alcoholic beverage, but donations are encouraged to benefit three nonprofit groups: Snooze Compass Foundation, Best Buddies and Porch Chapel Hill-Carrboro.

Dine-in customers can reserve a seat online, and online orders of up to $50 for pickup are free with a promo code. Online orders will be taken on a first-come, first-served basis. Get all the details online at www.snoozeeatery.com/chapel-hill.

Courtesy of Snooze Eatery
Courtesy of Snooze Eatery

▪ Chapel Hill will get another fast-food restaurant with a drive-through when Wendy’s opens at Carraway Village off Eubanks Road. The restaurant will be behind the Starbuck’s and across the street from Chick-fil-A on Village Center Drive. The Carraway Village permit allows up to five drive-through businesses.

There are still a few more steps before construction can begin, town planning manager Corey Liles said, including Community Design Commission approval of the final building and landscaping designs and the process to get zoning compliance and building permits.

▪ Trolly Stop Hot Dogs at 104 W. Franklin St. may be permanently closed. The store’s phone number was disconnected Thursday, and although a Google business profile identified the store as “temporarily closed,” a manager at the chain’s Wilmington location told The N&O the closure is likely permanent. The manager, who declined to be identified, noted it takes a lot of hot dogs to pay the high rents on Franklin Street.

▪ The Who’s Next Barber Shop on East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill has moved to 111 N. Graham St. on the bustling west end of downtown. The shop’s former location beside Cosmic Cantina at 128 E. Franklin St. will be redeveloped as part of UNC’s future Porthole Alley project. Cosmic Cantina also will be relocating in early 2024 to 118 E. Franklin St. The new space once housed Asia Cafe and is also owned by UNC’s Chapel Hill Foundation Real Estate Holdings.