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Menu Tracker: New items from Chick-fil-A, IHOP, and Taco BellMenu Tracker: New items from Chick-fil-A, IHOP, and Taco Bell

Plus innovation at Bar Louie, BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, Black Angus Steakhouse, Blue Bottle Coffee, Bob Evans Restaurants, Bricktown Brewery, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chuck E. Cheese, Dunkin’, Hungry Howie’s, Insomnia Cookies, Ippudo, Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que, McAlister’s Deli, Mighty Quinn's Barbeque , Nando’s Peri-Peri, Pancheros Mexican Grill, Red Lobster, Shipley Do-Nuts, and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

August 18, 2023

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Chile crisp, the spicy, crunchy, and oily condiment from China, has made it into quick service restaurants, albeit briefly and in just one Taco Bell location in Newport Beach, Calif., but that’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

So is Chick-fil-A’s new variation on its classic sandwich, made with the Southeastern delicacy of pimento cheese, which also happens to be on the current Weekly Taco Feature at Velvet Taco.

New sauces are afoot, including a bourbon one at Buffalo Wild Wings and a sweet chile sauce at Red Lobster.

Pumpkin spice season continues apace, of course, this week with items from Dunkin’, IHOP, and Shipley Do-Nuts, but not from Blue Bottle Coffee, which instead is bringing back its Black Cardamom Latte.

Cardamom does technically count as a pumpkin spice, but it’s a relatively rare one.

Insomnia Cookies is celebrating the return to school with some school lunch-themed items, sort of, and Hungry Howie’s is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a secret menu that references 1973.

Some of Buddy “The Cake Boss” Valastro’s creations can now be found at Chuck E. Cheese.

Bob Evans has barbecue beef, and Black Angus Steakhouse has a new steak.

Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que and Bar Louie have several new permanent additions to the menu,

BJ’s has a new beer, and Ippudo, a ramen concept from Japan, is offering its own interpretations of shochu highballs at its three New York City locations.

Bricktown Brewery has a mac & cheese burger, McAlister’s Deli has several new sandwiches, salads, and baked potatoes, and Nando’s Peri-Peri has seasonal specials, too.

Both Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque and Pancheros Mexican Grill have new side dishes based on Mexican street corn.

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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