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Menu Tracker: New items from Denny’s, Dunkin’ and Jack in the BoxMenu Tracker: New items from Denny’s, Dunkin’ and Jack in the Box

Plus innovation at Baskin-Robbins, Chick-fil-A, Chicken Salad Chick, Farmer Boys, Freshii, Johnny Rockets, Logan’s Roadhouse, Nando’s Peri Peri, Ocean Prime, Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom, PDQ, Piada Italian Street Food, Pizza Guys, Pollo Tropical, Roy Rogers, Rusty Bucket, Snarf’s Sandwiches, Studio Movie Grill, Taco John’s, TGI Fridays, Tim Hortons, Velvet Taco and Yoshinoya

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 17, 2021

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Last summer, Dunkin’ tested a variety of specialty drinks, including some containing little strawberry-flavored balls that burst in your mouth. Now those Popping Bubbles are available systemwide to be added to drinks for around 70 cents.

Dunkin’s sister brand, Baskin-Robbins, has some new special cakes for Father’s Day, including one shaped like a beer mug that it’s bringing back from previous years.

That’s just one of the chains that are bringing back favorites. Chick-fil-A’s peach milkshake, introduced in 2009, is back for the summer, and so are Denny’s Pancake Puppies, Farmer Boys Chicken Caesar Salad and Hog Heaven Breakfast Burrito, and Snarf’s Sandwiches’ Cubano.

Chicken Salad Chick has a new chicken salad: Pam’s Parmesan Caesar, named for Pam Ashley, the general manager of a unit in Augusta, Ga., who passed away from cancer. Ten percent of sales of the sandwich from company locations through July 15 will go to the Chicken Salad Chick Foundation for cancer research.

PDQ’s new sandwich made in collaboration with 4 Rivers Smokehouse also has a charitable component, with a portion of sales going to 4Roots, an organization seeking to foster a better food system in the Orlando, Fla., area, and Piada Italian Street Food’s new Acqua Fresca, which draws from honey and melon from local farms, is donating 10% of sales to LGBTQ support organization GLSEN through July.

Old Chicago has rolled out Detroit-style pizza and Pizza Guys has a new Mediterranean pizza.

Freshii sells tacos now, Taco John’s sells fried chicken, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature mimics a spicy tuna roll.

Jack in the Box has new fries topped with chicken, Logan’s Roadhouse has new waffle fries, Nando’s Peri Peri has new chicken bowls and Roy Rogers is dipping its chicken tenders in Texas Pete hot sauce.

Rusty Bucket has a bunch of new cocktails and Pollo Tropical has its first ready-to-drink cocktail under their own brand, La Palmita Cocktail Co.

Movie star Ryan Reynolds wins twice at Studio Movie Grill, which is showing his new film and selling a cocktail made with his gin.

TGI Fridays has a new cocktail that’s supposed to boost your immunity, and Tim Hortons has two new fruity drinks for the summer.

Johnny Rockets is 35 years old this summer, and is celebrating with a milkshake, Ocean Prime has seasonal halibut, and at Yoshinoya you can now top any bowl with sliced avocado.

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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