Raising Cane's is planning to spend roughly $1.75 million to bulldoze a former medical marijuana dispensary on North Dale Mabry Highway and replace it with its first restaurant inside Tampa city limits. The chicken chain intends to demolish the Sunnyside dispensary at 1902 N. Dale Mabry Highway, an 8,126-square-foot building, and put up a 2,794-square-foot restaurant with a drive-thru, mobile-order pickup window, and outdoor dining — roughly one-third the size of what's coming down.
The project, first reported by Tampa Bay Business and Wealth, would mark Raising Cane's fifth location in the Tampa Bay region and its first inside Tampa proper. The chain has already expanded into Clearwater, St. Petersburg, and Lutz, with locations on Gulf to Bay Boulevard and East Bay Drive in Clearwater, State Road 56 in Lutz, which opened in January 2025, and Tyrone Boulevard North in St. Petersburg, which opened in August 2025, according to 99.5 QYK.
The North Dale Mabry site itself carries some commercial history. The building slated for demolition opened in August 2022 as multistate operator Cresco Labs' first Sunnyside medical marijuana dispensary in Tampa, operating as a licensed cannabis treatment center next to the Walters Crossing shopping center, according to Durée & Company.
A Prime Pad Site Near Midtown and the Airport
It's easy to see the appeal of the location. North Dale Mabry Highway carries an estimated 57,500 vehicles a day, per LoopNet's listing for the property. The dispensary is near Tampa International Airport. That kind of visibility doesn't come cheap — the same report notes North Dale Mabry ranks among the densest commercial strips in Hillsborough County.
Raising Cane's has shown it's willing to pay for that kind of exposure elsewhere in the region. When the chain made its initial push into Pinellas County in 2023, it spent $4.5 million to acquire and demolish a former Village Inn restaurant on Gulf to Bay Boulevard in Clearwater, the station's report notes.
The North Dale Mabry project is part of a wider pattern across Tampa Bay, where the chain has pursued redevelopments of former casual-dining properties as prime standalone pad sites grow scarce. Site plans are also in motion for a former Red Lobster on Ulmerton Road in Largo and a former Romano's Macaroni Grill at Brandon Town Center Drive in Brandon, according to reporting from Tampa Bay Business and Wealth.
Crowded Chicken Corridor, New Jobs on the Way
Whoever ends up running the drive-thru window will have plenty of company. The North Dale Mabry strip has fast-food chicken competitors, including Chick-fil-A and Dave's Hot Chicken.
The new restaurant is projected to create about 40 local jobs once it opens, according to Tampa News Today. Like other new Raising Cane's builds in Florida, the Tampa location is expected to use the chain's double-lane drive-thru prototype, as Hoodline previously reported in coverage of the chain's push into Hernando County.
That same double drive-thru format has run into trouble elsewhere in the region. A 2026 Hernando County board resolution denied a drive-thru rezoning for Raising Cane's, underscoring how municipal boards across Tampa Bay scrutinize traffic studies, frontage-road improvements, and noise buffers near residential properties before signing off on high-volume drive-thru builds.
Part of a Fast-Growing Florida Push
Raising Cane's entry into Tampa fits into a broader statewide expansion that began with the chain's first Florida restaurant in Homestead in 2022. Company leadership has set a target of more than 25 Florida locations across major metro markets including Tampa Bay, Orlando, and Miami, citing strong demand from former residents of core markets like Texas and Louisiana who've relocated to the state, per the Tampa Bay Times.
The chain's growth hasn't slowed nationally, either. Raising Cane's opened 118 restaurants in 2024 and has now grown to more than 1,000 locations worldwide, decades after founder Todd Graves opened the first Raising Cane's in Baton Rouge in 1996.
