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Menu Tracker: New items from Carl’s Jr., Sonic Drive-In, and Taco BellMenu Tracker: New items from Carl’s Jr., Sonic Drive-In, and Taco Bell

Plus innovation at Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Eggs Up Grill, El Pollo Loco, Flying Biscuit Café, Friendly’s, IHOP, McAlister’s Deli, Miller’s Ale House, Modern Market Eatery, Mooyah, Next Level Burger, Nothing Bundt Cakes, Piada Italian Street Food, Pokeworks, Protein Bar & Kitchen, Quiznos, Randy’s Donuts, Ruby Slipper, Salad and Go, Studio Movie Grill, Taco Cabana, Tous Les Jours, True Food Kitchen, Twin Peaks, Velvet Taco, and Vicious Biscuit

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

March 1, 2024

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It’s March, and that means many things, including St. Patrick’s Day, which is being celebrated by many chains, including Flying Biscuit Café, IHOP (probably — it’s Pancake of the Month, a series started last month, is minty and green), McAlister’s Deli, Miller’s Ale House, Next Level Burger, Protein Bar & Kitchen, and Tous Les Jours.

Studio Movie Grill has a green Icee, but that’s to celebrate a new Ghostbusters film.

But it’s also Lent for the rest of the month, and so Twin Peaks and El Pollo Loco have new seafood options, and of course Easter comes after Lent, which Friendly’s is observing with a special sundae.

And it’s the season of the March Madness NCAA basketball championships, an occasion Buffalo Wild Wings is marking with a couple of new wing sauces.

Other chains are marching to the beats of their own drums. Baskin-Robbins, for reasons of its own, is offering an ice cream flavor called Mexican Chocolate Brownie, Eggs Up Grill has new scrambled eggs bowls, and Mooyah has a patty melt.

Piada is replacing its Deluxe Caesar Salad with a kale-based one, Quiznos has subs inspired by Philly cheesesteaks, Salad and Go has a new steak wrap, Modern Market has a chicken wrap, Randy’s Donuts has mochi doughnuts in select locations, and Ruby Slipper has limited-time-offers for early spring.

True Food Kitchen makes its pizza with sourdough crusts now, and Pokeworks is offering a plant-based tuna substitute at select locations

Vicious Biscuit has a spicy chicken bacon ranch item, Carl’s Jr. has new spicy burgers (including one for breakfast), and Taco Bell has new items made with Tajín, but only at one location in Irvine, Calif.

Taco Cabana has some small tests, too, Sonic has fried chicken wraps, Nothing Bundt Cakes has a cake with Oreo cookies in it, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is a surf & turf.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

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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