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Menu Tracker: New items from Bojangles, Jollibee, and Taco BellMenu Tracker: New items from Bojangles, Jollibee, and Taco Bell

Plus innovation at Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar, Black Bear Diner, Burgerville, Dog Haus, Donatos Pizza, Eatzi’s, Gott’s Roadside, Häagen-Dazs, Holey Grail Donuts, Hot Dog on a Stick, Huckleberry’s Breakfast and Lunch, Krispy Kreme, Lion’s Choice, Potbelly, Pour House, Robeks, Schlotzsky’s, Shake Shack, Shipley Do-Nuts, True Food Kitchen, Velvet Taco , and Wetzel’s Pretzels

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

April 12, 2024

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There’s a lot of menu spring cleaning going on out there, with huge revamps from smaller chains such as Pour House, True Food Kitchen, and Eatzi’s,  new smoothies and boosts at Robeks, and a lineup of seasonal items at Black Bear Diner.

There are new hot honey items at Dog Haus and Burgerville, and Donatos is stuffing its pizza crust.

Applebee’s has a new bacon-heavy burger, Shake Shack is testing a chicken avocado BLT, and Schlotzsky’s is taking sister brand Cinnabon’s core product and putting bacon on top of that.

Bojangles has chicken tenders in hot dog buns, and Potbelly has a spicy new fried chicken sandwich.

There are several new drinks, including Wetzel’s Pretzels’ creamsicle flavored beverage, creamsicle apparently being the trendy flavor of this spring and summer. Sort of related, Gott’s Roadside has a strawberries & cream shake.

Taco Bell is testing aguas frescas in Irvine, Calif., and there’s a dragon fruit lemonade Hot Dog on a Stick.

Krispy Kreme, Holey Grail Donuts and Shipley Do-Nuts have new doughnuts, Häagen-Dazs has a cheesecake sundae, and  Huckleberry’s Breakfast and Lunch has red velvet pancakes.

Lion’s Choice has a new iteration of its signature roast beef sandwich, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is vegetarian.

 

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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