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Menu Tracker: New items from Boston Market, Fazoli’s, Whataburger and Smoothie KingMenu Tracker: New items from Boston Market, Fazoli’s, Whataburger and Smoothie King

Plus offerings from Fat Straws , Firebirds Wood Fired Grill, Insomnia Cookies, Lion’s Choice, Modern Market Eatery, O’Charley’s Restaurant & Bar, Orange Leaf, Rascal House, Smokey Bones, Velvet Taco, Viva Chicken, The Whimsy Cookie Company, Whataburger and Your Pie

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

September 30, 2020

17 Slides
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The headline is that Fazoli’s, which had been operating a chicken-wing virtual concept called Wingville, is now rolling out those wings at its brick-and-mortar restaurants.

Boston Market is introducing some seasonal chicken meals, Modern Market Eatery has a new protein option in blackened chicken thighs, and O’Charley’s Restaurant & Bar has some new family meals, all featuring chicken.

Meanwhile, fast-casual Peruvian concept Viva Chicken is highlighting Peru’s Chinese influence with a stir-fried dish with soy sauce, ginger and noodles.

Both Insomnia Cookies and The Whimsy Cookie Company now have gluten-free versions of their signature items, while boba tea concept Fat Straws is leaning into gluten with three doughnuts, offered for three days in celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the moon festival.

Early fall is chile season, which Whataburger is celebrating with a spicy burger and a spicy chicken sandwich, Velvet Taco has sweet chile shrimp in its weekly feature and Your Pie has three spicy seasonal offerings, plus a seasonal vegan gelato made with oat milk.

Smoothie King also has a seasonal offering made with oat milk.

Firebirds Wood Fired Grill has a couple of weekly specials, Lion’s Choice has a new kids sandwich, Orange Leaf has two autumnal frozen treats, and Rascal House is topping a pizza with Fritos corn chips.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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