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Menu Tracker: New items from Checkers & Rally’s, P.F. Chang’s and Tim HortonsMenu Tracker: New items from Checkers & Rally’s, P.F. Chang’s and Tim Hortons

Plus additions at Bennigan’s, Buffalo Wings & Rings, Cotton Patch Café, Krystal, Lemonade, Mellow Mushroom, Newk’s Eatery, Smashburger, Tarka Indian Kitchen, Uno Pizzeria & Grill and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

November 25, 2020

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Bennigan’s, Buffalo Wings & Rings and P.F. Chang’s are celebrating the holidays with new cocktails (plus, at P.F. Chang’s a new iteration of its popular lettuce wraps), while Krystal, Smashburger and Tim Hortons are marking the seasons with softer, sweeter beverages.

Cotton Patch Café is offering new breaded and fried chicken and pork entrees, and Uno Pizzeria & Grill is going back to its roots with a Chicago-style deep dish line.

Lemonade has a new garlic-rosemary flank steak option, Checkers & Rally’s have a new spicy chicken sandwich, and Newk’s Eatery is finding new ways to dress up its family recipe chile.

Tarka Indian Kitchen, and Indian chain based in Austin, Texas, has introduced new vegan options, and Mellow Mushroom has some permanent menu additions, including a pizza inspired by the Cubano sandwich that was developed by Andrew Clarke & Mitch Lloyd, two employees at the chain’s Blacksburg, Va., location.

Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature also draws inspiration from a traditional dish: turducken.

All photos courtesy of their respective companies

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

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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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