LONGMONT — Chicken finger-focused fast-food chain Raising Cane’s has broken ground on its new Longmont restaurant and expects the location to be open by December. 

The restaurant at 1236 S. Hover St. is taking the place of the former La Madeleine site, which has been vacant since the cafe shuttered in 2018. 

The rapidly expanding Louisiana-based fast-casual chain has 14 existing or planned Colorado locations — and more than 470 worldwide — but the Longmont restaurant would be Raising Cane’s first in Boulder County. Currently the closest locations to the county are in Broomfield and Fort Collins. 

“We are LoCo for Longmont and couldn’t be more excited to bring Raising Cane’s to the area,” Raising Cane’s regional leader of restaurants Jason Zwerin said in a prepared statement. 

The company plans to soon begin hiring 80 employees — from managers to hourly workers — to man the new Longmont restaurant. 

“Raising Cane’s Culture is built on serving our communities – it’s the foundation of who we are and what we believe in. Part of that commitment is providing good jobs that can lead to great careers, so we can’t wait to hire an incredible crew to join us in becoming an integral part of the Longmont community,” Zwerin’s statement said. 

According to plans submitted by the firm to Longmont city planners, the former La Madeleine building will be demolished to be replaced with a roughly 3,800-square-foot fast-food restaurant with dual drive-through lanes. 

Raising Cane’s Restaurant LLC is the project’s developer, PM Design Architectural Solutions Group is providing architectural services and Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. is the project engineer, planning documents show. 

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