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Menu Tracker: New items from Del Taco, Sonic Drive-In and PaneraMenu Tracker: New items from Del Taco, Sonic Drive-In and Panera

Plus innovation at Apóla Greek Grill, Chick N Max, Dog Haus, Farmer Boys, North Italia, Quiznos, Roy Rogers Restaurants, Rusty Taco, The Salty Donut, Studio Movie Grill, Sweet Chick, Tiki Docks, Velvet Taco and Voodoo Doughnut

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

July 29, 2022

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If you happen to be at select Panera locations in Miami, you can order your food in “Ludicrous Mode,” which means adding a side of habanero hot sauce from Yellowbird, which Panera says is the top-selling hot sauce brand at Whole Foods Market and on Amazon. So the fast-casual chain is seeing how its customers like it.

Del Taco has some new crispy items in its Crunchtada line, plus a milkshake with M&Ms in it, and Sonic Drive-In is selling churros and bringing back Bursting Bubbles, its response to the boba tea movement that it tested last year.

Quiznos has a new burnt ends sandwich, and Roy Rogers isn’t letting the Sriracha sauce shortage stop it from rolling out a chicken sandwich with that flavor; it’s using Heinz Honeyracha Sauce.

Studio Movie Grill, in celebration of the release of the film Bullet Train, starring Brad Pitt, is offering a cocktail made with Pitt’s own Enroot tea — a win-win for the celebrity.

Voodoo Doughnut has a doughnut disguised as an ice cream bar, Tous Les Jours has new cakes,

Rusty Taco has a spicy Margarita, and Dog Haus’s latest collab is with YouTube personality Sam “the Cooking Guy” Zien.

Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has Hawaiian poke, and North Italia has rolled out seasonal cocktails, the actual contents of which varies by region (except for Florida and Atlanta, where only the name is different).

We’re also hearing from some smaller chain’s this week, such as Apóla, which two units in Orange County, Calif., and a new baklava cheesecake, three-unit Chick N Max out of Wichita which has a new Cajun-inspired sandwich, and Tiki Docks, a Tampa-based, Polynesian influenced concept, has launched a dozen new items.

The Salty Donut has two collabs with restaurants in two cities, Sweet Chick, in another collab, is selling chocolate banana pancakes at three locations and Farmer Boys is selling floats at its Gilbert, Ariz., location to raise money for Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

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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