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Menu Tracker: New items from Bojangles, Culver’s, and Dunkin’Menu Tracker: New items from Bojangles, Culver’s, and Dunkin’

Plus innovation at &Pizza, Another Broken Egg, Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar, Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar, Baja Fresh, Baskin-Robbins, Black Rock Coffee Bar, Bob Evans, Clean Eatz, Dewey’s Pizza, Dutch Bros, Flying Biscuit Cafe, Ford’s Garage, Friendly’s , Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, IHOP, Jeremiah’s Italian Ice, Miguel’s Jr., Mountain Mike’s Pizza, Paris Baguette, Pita Pit, PJ’s Coffee, Tim Hortons , Togo’s, Velvet Taco, Vitality Bowls, and Wings Etc.

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

May 2, 2024

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Applebee’s is bringing back its understandably popular Dollarita, along with some more premium drink options and loaded fries.

Elsewhere on the beverage front, Black Rock Coffee Bar and Dutch Brose have new coffee, energy drink, and lemonade options, Culver’s has lemony drinks, Dunkin’ has a whole lineup of seasonal options, Miguel’s Jr. has new horchata and lemonade, and PJ’s Coffee of New Orleans has its first cold brew flavored with chicory, as is the custom in that city. Tim Hortons also has seasonal drinks, as does Another Broken Egg, and Wings Etc. is promoting its new hot honey sauce with a similarly flavored Margarita.

Bojangles is also playing into the sweet-spicy trend by putting a sausage patty on its Bo-Berry Biscuit, while Mountain Mike’s Pizza is just going for straight spicy with its new jalapeño “Not-Knots.”

Speaking of pizza, &pizza has some new and returning ones and Dewey’s Pizza has a new taco pie named after a professional wrestler, possibly in line with Cinco de Mayo, which Velvet Taco is celebrating with its Weekly Taco Feature, called the El Jefe.

Flying Biscuit has some Mexican-influenced items for the month, too. So does Bad Daddy’s Burger, and Fuzzy’s Taco Shop has new beans.

You can get Nerds on your frozen treats at Jeremiah’s Italian Ice now.

Baja Fresh has a new taco.

Togo’s has upgraded its Italian sub and is offering a new spicy version alongside it, and Vitality Bowls has a new açaí bowl.

The Kentucky Derby is coming up, too, and Ford’s Garage is marking the occasion with a classic Louisville sandwich, the Hot Brown.

Pita Pit has new grilled cheese options, Bob Evans has some springtime specials, and Baskin-Robbins has new ice cream creations in cross-promotion with the film IF.

Friendly’s has a new conehead sundae, Clean Eatz has a turkey burger bowl, and Paris Baguette has special cakes for Mother’s Day and graduates.

IHOP’s Pancake of the Month is white chocolate raspberry.

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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