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Menu Tracker: New items from Arby’s, Chick-fil-A and Del TacoMenu Tracker: New items from Arby’s, Chick-fil-A and Del Taco

Plus additions at Corner Bakery, Cotton Patch Café, Jamba Juice, Kung Fu Tea, MOD Pizza, Moe’s Southwest Grill, PJ’s Coffee, Sajj Mediterranean Grill, Steak ’n Shake, Sweet Paris, TGI Fridays, Tropical Smoothie Café, Velvet Taco and Wayback Burgers

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

November 19, 2020

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It’s an unusual week in that no new fried chicken sandwiches seem to have been introduced. However Arby’s has introduced seasonal fried turkey sandwiches, Cotton Patch Café has a fried pork sandwich and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has fried chicken, as well as mashed potatoes and gravy.

There are a lot of new sweet drinks, including milkshakes from Steak ’n Shake, Chick-fil-A and Wayback Burgers, coffee drinks from PJ’s coffee and a line of drinks with brown sugar boba at Kung Fu Tea. Jamba Juice and Tropical Smoothie Café both have new smoothies.

Elsewhere in desserts, Sweet Paris has a green crêpe decorated like a Christmas tree, but called The Grinch, TGI Fridays is featuring Buddy “Cake Boss” Valastro’s Rainbow Cake, Corner Bakery has miniature Bundt cakes and MOD Pizza has a new Squad Cake, proceeds of which go to its employee relief fund.

Moe’s Southwest Grill is bringing back its chile con queso for the rest of the year, Sajj Mediterranean Grill has a whole new line of mezze, or appetizers, and Del Taco is celebrating the holidays early with a lineup of festive tamales.

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 of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality.

Hi is responsible for spotting and reporting on F&B trends across the country for both publications. 

He is the co-host of a podcast, Menu Talk with Pat and Bret, 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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