Would you drive 30 minutes to a Raising Cane’s? We checked out the region’s first.

Frances Craig drove her seventh-grade son Fischer Smith nearly an hour from Lincolnton, North Carolina, to Rock Hill on Tuesday for chicken tenders with a side of memories.

“In 20 years, he’ll be able to look back and be like, hey, you remember that time that we froze our behinds off out in Rock Hill?” Craig said.

By mid-morning, it looked like half of Charlotte ventured to the new Raising Cane’s restaurant off Dave Lyle Boulevard. The chicken finger chain from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is known for its indiscriminate dipping sauce — TikTokers plunge chicken, fries, toast or half their forearms into it.

This is Raising Cane’s first restaurant in the Charlotte region. It opened at 10 a.m. Tuesday, and workers were greeted by more than 250 bundled-up customers who stood in long rows facing of the restaurant, while others waited in their vehicles.

Craig, holding tight to both a portable heater and a homemade #Tendies4Life poster, didn’t have to worry with the morning commute traffic. “We got here at 8:30 last night,” she said. “This has been on his bucket list ever since they announced that Cane’s was coming to Rock Hill. So (Fischer) wanted to get here in plenty enough time to try and be the first ones in line.”

Craig and Fischer indeed made the front spot in line, followed by Derek Steele and his “Caniac” partner, both from Rock Hill, who also showed up Monday night. Steele is a ‘90s baby who never got the Black Friday experience.

“This is the closest to waiting in line I was ever going to get,” Steele said.

Parents take one for the team

It’s 7:50 a.m. when Shynita Ramos steps into line, takes a lanyard with No. 100 on it, and fires off a “mission accomplished” text to her daughter Sophia.

“I have a teenager who lives on TikTok, and she told me that she wanted to come. But it’s a school day,” Ramos said. “So I’m coming in her stead.”

Rock Hill is just the fourth Raising Cane’s location in South Carolina, and the first in the Charlotte region. So most folks here know it from traveling, or from its heavy social media presence among young people. The growing line is filled with parents whose teens clued them into the place.

We’re easy to spot because we’re the ones talking out loud to one another.

There’s the mother of two from Chester right behind me. There are parents from Charlotte, Chapel Hill, Indian Land. Most are in line hoping to win one of 20 “chicken for a year” giveaways.

None of us are sure how much street cred we’ll bank with our kids by standing in front of a TikTok trendy spot on opening day.

“I don’t know if that’s how it works with them,” Ramos said. “But, hopefully.”

Long line of cold people for hot chicken from Raising Cane’s

I don’t know if the chicken at Raising Cane’s comes frozen, but the first couple hundred customers sure did.

There are about 250 people in line when the doors open, and I’m not sure if it’s reached 30 degrees outside. I can’t tell if the DJ at the front door is just that good or if it’s a collective attempt to maintain circulation, but there’s a little sway to the crowd.

It’s an upbeat group, led by folks who tried the chicken in Kansas City or Tennessee. Several of them already have plans to return Tuesday night, once kids are out of school.

By the time I make it inside at 10:13 a.m., there’s a drive-thru line backed up through the shopping center clear to Michaels and HomeGoods.

“There’s crack in the chicken,” Steele said. “I don’t know what else to tell you. The chicken is that good.”

I don’t verify that recipe with corporate, but I get what he’s saying. I’m told to expect juicy tenders with a crunch. They’re not greasy like some chains, I’m told, and the tenders won’t be spicy.

The chicken isn’t my main focus, though. It’s the sauce.

TikTok and Raising Cane’s sauce

My family has a bit of history with “secret sauce” pranks, so I ask half a dozen people in line if I can trust what one of my soon-to-be three teen sons told me last night on the way to buy soccer cleats.

Is the cup of sauce real?

Evidently people buy cups of Raising Cane’s tender sauce. Not a measuring flour for biscuits type cup. It’s the cup you’d drink soda or lemonade from, but filled with Raising Cane’s sauce. Up to the employee who directs me to my register, they all say the sauce cup is a thing.

I step up to order. Maybe it’s a first-day deal or maybe they roll this way, but there are rows of Raising Cane’s workers. They probably don’t want me mentioning competing chicken joints, but let’s just say if I’d heard a “my pleasure” from the back, it wouldn’t have felt out of place.

I order a tender box with fries and a drink, and some extra tenders for the kids. One of them ate at Raising Cane’s last fall on a band trip, and hasn’t stopped clucking about the place since.

Food is moving fast. I get my order and head to the van to eat. Waiting long to eat fried chicken is unfair to the dish. So I dive in, as vehicles are now encircling the shopping center to get their food.

Now, a person my size has no business reviewing food. I am not what you might call particular. But, assuming the cold weather hunger and the way early lunchtime roughly cancel out, I get it. The tenders are hot and juicy. They aren’t huge, but they’re plump with a lightly fried taste. The Texas toast is shorter but longer than others I’ve had.

I’d put the sauce on the creamier than spicy end of that spectrum, with more of a peppery kick than a heated one.

But again, I’ve never been mistaken for a connoisseur of anything. I just like to eat. And, I enjoyed my first time at Rock Hill’s newest spot.

Coming back to Raising Cane’s

Unless dared, I’m unlikely to ever dip my head in a vat of sauce. I’ll never go TikTok viral over a chicken tender lunch. But I’d definitely eat here again. Mainly because I have at least one kid who can’t wait to make the trip across town to try it.

You just can’t buy that sort of enthusiasm at that age.

Kay Jones from Charlotte, one of the “Lucky 20” who had her number drawn for a year of free chicken, knows what I mean. She stood in line for hours with a son much younger than mine, something she’d planned since she knew the Rock Hill spot was coming.

“Worth the trip,” she said.