Why did Raising Cane’s sue and Indiana shopping center? The controversy explained

Raising Cane’s is known across the United States for its delicious chicken fingers. However, in 2022 the restaurant involved itself in a pretty crazy, but completely justified, lawsuit.

The fast food chain opened its doors in 1996 and has expanded rapidly since then with there now being around 700 restaurants dotted across 38 states. Back around 2021/2022 Cane’s was making a push into the state of Indiana – part of this plan involved opening a new store in the Crossings of Hobart shopping center.

However, after Cane’s had invested a lot of time and money into what would have been a double drive-thru restaurant at the shopping center. In fact, the construction took place over eight months and cost roughly one million dollars; however, the doors to the now store would never open. In March 2022 Cane’s filed a lawsuit against the shopping center after details that would have affected business were brought to light. 

Crossings of Hobart were hiding something

So why were Cane’s suing the Indiana shopping center? Well it turns out if the restaurant had opened, it wouldn’t have been allowed to sell chicken fingers, you know, pretty much the only thing Cane’s is known for selling. An article from Fox59 reported that Crossings and Hobart already had a previously undisclosed deal which gave McDonald’s the exclusive rights to sell boneless chicken at the center.

The lawsuit filed by Cane’s claims that it was not informed of this exclusivity agreement between Crossing of Hobart owners, Schottenstein Property Group, and McDonald’s and if it had been made aware it obviously wouldn’t have signed a 15 year lease equating to two million dollars. The suit claims that the owners of the shopping center intentionally covered up the agreement between them and McDonald’s in order to trick Cane’s into agreeing.

The most baffling part is how Schottenstein Property Group stood by and watched millions of dollars and eight months of time go into constructing a restaurant they knew wouldn’t be able to sell food, and they thought they’d get away with it. While there are other things on the menu at Raising Cane’s it would be the same as opening a McDonald’s and then asking them not to sell anything with burgers – or stop selling Happy Meals.

The defendants even tried to sell exclusivity rights to Cane’s despite knowing that McDonald’s had held the rights since 1994. Apparently the deal was made by previous property managers and the new owners sought to get McDonald’s to waive its exclusivity rights on two occasions – both times the chain refused.

It seems the Schottenstein Property Group knew they had made an error but hoped to correct it before anyone found out. However, rather than fix the mistake, they simply strung Cane’s along for the better part of a year.