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Menu Tracker: New items from Arby’s, Popeyes, and StarbucksMenu Tracker: New items from Arby’s, Popeyes, and Starbucks

Plus innovation at Andy’s Frozen Custard, , Beans & Brews Coffeehouse, Biggby Coffee, Buffalo’s Café, California Pizza Kitchen, Caribou Coffee, Carl’s Jr., Carvel, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Del Taco, Dig, Domino’s , Dutch Bros, Farmer Boys , First Watch, Flying Biscuit Café, Hurricane Grill & Wings, Insomnia Cookies, Krispy Kreme, La Madeleine, Native Grill & Wings, Norms, Nothing Bundt Cakes, O’Charley’s Restaurant and Bar, Peet’s Coffee, Scooter’s Coffee, Sonic Drive-In, Starbucks , Sweetgreen, Tacodeli, Tim Hortons, Twin Peaks, and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

August 25, 2023

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Both Popeyes and Arby’s have new sweet & spicy wings. Well, sort of: Arby’s wings are boneless, which I know we’ve all come to accept as an option for wings, but we also know that boneless wings are, in fact, chicken breast. 

There are also new wings at sister chains Native Wings & Grill and Hurricane Grill & Wings, but their other sibling, Buffalo’s Café, has new ribs instead.

Twin Peaks doesn’t have new wings per se, but it does have a new sauce for them, which the chain claims is so spicy that its name is censored. 

Speaking of spiciness, early autumn is pepper season, and Carl’s Jr. is anticipating that with a new burger that has a whole charred chile on it.

Del Taco, on the other hand, is leaning into brisket and Dig reminds us that we’re still very much in summer with its new watermelon side.

Krispy Kreme, for its part, has a strawberry glaze, and Insomnia Cookies has blueberry pancake ice cream.

Farmer Boys has a new chicken strips meal, and Velvet Taco has a meal featuring rotisserie chicken.

Sonic Drive-In has a new sandwich that is both a burger and a grilled cheese sandwich. 

Sweetgreen has launched an early fall menu that includes an Italian chopped salad, and California Pizza Kitchen has brought back its old Italian Chopped Salad after its customers disapproved of the reformulated one.

Norms has an early fall menu with no new salads.

Domino’s has new pepperoni cheesy bread, Flying Biscuit Café has stuffed French Toast, and O’Charley’s has some new shrimp dishes available only on the weekend.

Tacodeli has a new blondie, Nothing Bundt Cakes has a dessert with Oreo cookies, and Andy’s Frozen Custard has a dessert based on a cannoli, except that it’s custard. 

Dutch Bros has a new energy drink.

Are there any new pumpkin spice items? Why yes there are, from Beans & Brews Coffeehouse, Biggby Coffee, Caribou Coffee, Carvel, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, First Watch, La Madeleine, Peet’s Coffee, Scooter’s Coffee, and Tim Hortons. Oh yeah; also the chain that started it all: Starbucks. 

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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