Inflatable mattresses and tents lined South University Avenue Tuesday morning as students turned the Ann Arbor streets into an overnight campsite for one thing: a plate of fried chicken fingers. By 8 a.m., the corner of South and East University avenues rang with chants as about 250 community members eagerly awaited the grand opening of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers. Those who made it there first had the opportunity to win free Raising Cane’s for a year in a random drawing.
The restaurant, a chain which serves a combo of chicken fingers, fries and toasted bread accompanied by a signature mayonnaise-based pepper sauce, is the third of its kind in Michigan after the Canton and East Lansing locations.
During the opening ceremony, Jessica Baranski, Raising Cane’s area leader of training, presented a model of a cricket to Chloe Warren, the Ann Arbor location’s restaurant leader. In her remarks, Baranski said this upheld a longtime tradition honoring the first Raising Cane’s location in Louisiana, founded by Todd Graves in 1996…