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Menu Tracker: New items from Culver’s, Del Taco and Wendy’sMenu Tracker: New items from Culver’s, Del Taco and Wendy’s

Plus innovation from Eggs Up Grill, Elevation Burger, Fatburger, First Watch, Friendly’s, Frisch’s Big Boy, Gott’s Roadside, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, HoneyBaked Ham, Insomnia Cookies, Jamba, Krispy Kreme, Mooyah, Oath Pizza, Pinkberry, Nekter Juice Bar, Pure Green, Saladworks, 16 Handles, Smokey Bones, Sweetgreen, Taco Time, Tacodeli, Tijuana Flats, Torchy’s Tacos, Velvet Taco, Voodoo Doughnut, Woody’s Bar-B-Q and Yogurtland

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 11, 2021

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Summer doesn’t actually start until June 20, but the fruit and barbecue inspiration are already charging on to menus.

So is corn. There’s a lot of corn on menus this summer, including items from First Watch, Gott’s Roadside, Smokey Bones and a whole line of Mexican street-corn-inspired items at Tijuana Flats.

Wendy’s has brought back its strawberry chicken salad for the summer, Friendly’s has brought back its lobster roll, Mooyah has brought back its Campfire Burger and Sweetgreen has brought back a seasonal favorite of its own: burrata — mozzarella stuffed with cream and more mozzarella — available in different salads depending on the market.

Saladworks has reworked its customizable menu with a bunch of new curated items, and Grimaldi’s Pizzeria has introduced its summertime specials.

Culver’s has brought back its Pretzel Haus Pub Burger and introduced the first new custard Flavor of the Day since 2019 (stay tuned for another one next month).

Insomnia Cookies has new ice cream-inspired cookies and, in a similar vein, Krispy Kreme has lemonade-inspired doughnuts.

Del Taco is throwing its fried chicken hat in the ring, and sister brands Elevation and Fatburger, along with HoneyBaked Ham are the latest chains to partner with King’s Hawaiian.

Oath Pizza has a new crust made out of chickpeas, Yogurtland and 16 Handles have new vegan desserts, and Nekter Juice Bar has new items intended for functionality.

Berries and Key lime pancakes are on hand at Egg’s Up Grill, Frisch’s Big Boy has desserts with Oreo Wafers, Jamba has watermelon and blackberry specials and Pinkberry is focusing on mango.

For reasons that are unclear, Woody’s Bar-B-Q has three gun-themed burgers and Pure Green has a new drink in collaboration with Jonathan “Foodgod” Cheban.

Taco Time has a Doritos pie.

Tacodeli has items with products from local producers, Torchy’s Taco has a spicy Taco of the Month, Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has flanks steak and chimichurri, and Voodoo Doughnut is celebrating Pride Month with a dessert decorated in rainbows.

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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