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Menu Tracker: New items from Chick-fil-A, Panera Bread and Red LobsterMenu Tracker: New items from Chick-fil-A, Panera Bread and Red Lobster

Plus additions at Bennigan’s, Bob Evans Restaurants, Coolgreens, Dog Haus, Dutch Bros Coffee, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, Hot Head Burritos, Hurricane Grill & Wings, Lemonade, Paris Baguette, PJ’s Coffee, Ruby Tuesday, Rusty Taco, Smokey Bones, Taco Bell Canada and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

September 17, 2020

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We’re nearing the end of American blueberry season, and restaurants are celebrating with items such as blueberry doughnuts at Paris Baguette, a sandwich with ham and blueberry jam at Coolgreens and a blueberry Margarita at Bennigan’s.

Bennigan’s is also celebrating Oktoberfest, which it calls Benntoberfest, with a returning line of autumn-oriented menu item, and Dog Haus is bringing back its cheese-stuffed Oktoberwürst, along with a new meal kit for guests to cook them at home.

Panera Bread is taking a step that, in retrospect, is obvious: Combining its popular broccoli cheddar soup and popular mac & cheese and selling broccoli cheddar mac & cheese, while Chick-fil-A, in what it says is its first test of a seasonal variation of its signature sandwich, is testing a Honey Pepper Pimento Chicken Sandwich in parts of the Southeast.

Bob Evans is also adding honey to chicken with a new line of fried breasts featuring clover honey from Dear Creek Farms in London, Ohio.

In beverage news, drive-thru coffee chain Dutch Bros Coffee has introduced its take on the pumpkin spice trend, the fall lineup at PJ’s Coffee includes its version of the trendy golden latte, made with turmeric, and Red Lobster has teamed up with MTN Dew to make a signature Margarita.

In other unexpected drink news, Taco Bell Canada has introduced a custom-made wine at two units, only available via Uber Eats, to promote the new Toasted Cheesy Chalupa, which is now available across Canada and is expected to be brought to the United States in November.

Carl’s Jr. has a similar gimmick underway in California.

Speaking of collaborations Einstein Bros. Bagels has teamed up with sous-vide experts Cuisine Solutions to make a bagel-shaped sous-vide egg, that the chain is selling as a gluten-free bagel, and Hot Head Burritos is letting guests top any of their menu items with Doritos tortilla chips or Fritos corn chips for $1.

Hurricane Grill & Wings is offering a bunch of new bar snacks for the season, and bringing back a grilled, sliced steak with chimichurri, Ruby Tuesday has four new pastas, and Smokey Bones has a whole new lineup of meat dishes

Lemonade has introduced a tuna taco, Fuzzy’s Taco Shop has a new mahi mahi taco, and in an almost frightening coincidence, both Rusty Taco and Velvet Taco have taco versions of the Philly cheesesteak.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

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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