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Menu Tracker: New items from Carl’s Jr., KFC, and PopeyesMenu Tracker: New items from Carl’s Jr., KFC, and Popeyes

Plus innovation at Carvel, Chicken Salad Chick, Chili’s Grill & Bar, Cinnaholic, Cracker Barrel, Dog Haus, The Flying Biscuit Café, Fogo de Chão, Gong Cha, Häagen-Dazs, Johnny Rockets, Marco’s Pizza , Potbelly, Velvet Taco, and Yogurtland

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

August 9, 2024

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Yes, it’s still the first half of August. Yes, it seems awfully early for pumpkin spice items to start rolling out, but, yes, they started arriving at the same time last year. If you don’t like it, don’t order those items. There are plenty of other seasonal items to choose from.

Have a Popeyes Apple Caramel Cheesecake Cup instead, or a Southern Apple Cobbler from Cracker Barrel. 

But if you want pumpkin spice, Yogurtland has you covered, and Carvel will next week (but they told us about it early). 

Potbelly still knows its summer, so it has s’mores and toasted-marshmallow-oriented sweets.

Elsewhere on the dessert front, Cinnaholic is doing a collab with a Dallas influencer, Johnny Rockets has a new Dirt Cup Shake, and Häagen-Dazs has reformulated its pistachio ice cream.

KFC has more sauces for its nuggets, and Gong Cha is infusing its boba with Frank’s RedHot in a continuing trend of spicy drinks — nonalcoholic ones.

On the other hand Fogo de Chão has a new wine.

Chili’s is being a bit more traditional with its hot sauce, putting it on mozzarella sticks.

Carl’s Jr. is celebrating National Zucchini  Day, August 8, with a fried zucchini sandwich. 

The Flying Biscuit Café has a new sandwich and a new waffle.

Chicken Salad Chick, true to its name, has a new chicken salad. Similarly, Marco’s Pizza has a new pizza.

Dog Haus, however, has a new burger.

And as I does every week, Velvet Taco has a Weekly Taco Feature, this one inspired by shrimp & grits. 

 

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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