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Menu Tracker: New items from Dunkin’, Hardee’s, and Wendy’sMenu Tracker: New items from Dunkin’, Hardee’s, and Wendy’s

Plus innovation at Black Tap, Chicken Salad Chick, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Chopt Creative Salad Company, Condado Tacos, Eggs Up Grill, Friendly’s, Grimaldi’s, Huddle House, Jeremiah’s Italian Ice, Just Salad, Krispy Kreme, Marble Slab Creamery, Nekter Juice Bar, Rita’s Italian Ice & Frozen Custard, 16 Handles, Slapfish Coastal Seafood Kitchen, Taco Cabana, Taco John’s, Tacodeli, Tous Les Jours, and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

September 15, 2023

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For years I have been advocating for a restaurant to offer miniature milkshakes — shake shots, if you will — because no adult other than those participating in sports at a professional or Olympic level needs to be drinking 16 ounces or more worth of ice cream spun with milk and syrup. And who wouldn’t like 1-2 ounces of a sweet treat for a dollar or two, maybe at 2 p.m?

No one that I know of has done that yet, but Black Tap has come close: It now has 1.5-ounce Shake Shots, but they’re boozy and cost $9.  

The big news on the beverage front is Krispy Kreme upgrading its coffee. Details aren’t fully clear yet, but the doughnut chain’s coffee is now made with 100% Arabica beans and operators brought in new equipment for it. 

Also in beverages, Dunkin’ now has a Frozen Coffee with its Munchkins doughnut holes mixed in. A Wendy’s Frosty arguably counts as a beverage, and it has a pumpkin spice one now, and Tous Les Jours has Pumpkin Pie Macchiato and a Butter Pecan Latte.

In other pumpkin-  and pumpkin spice-related news there are new items from Eggs Up Grill, Grimaldi’s,Jeremiah’s Italian Ice, Just Salad, Nekter Juice Bar, Rita’s Italian Ice & Frozen Custard, and 16 Handles.

Huddle House has rolled out some hot honey items systemwide after testing them earlier in the year, and Hardee’s has made Nashville hot chicken tenders a permanent option.

Chicken Salad Chick has a grilled cheese sandwich with chicken salad on it, Chopt has new options inspired by the Eastern Mediterranean, and Taco Cabana is celebrating Hatch green chile season with some new items.

Condado Tacos is bringing back a legacy item called the El Santo, and Chipotle Mexican Grill is bringing back its carne asada for the third time.

Friendly’s has new sundaes developed in collaboration with each of the Jonas Brothers, and Nick Jonas, for reasons of his own, decided to make his with frozen yogurt.

Marble Slab Creamery figured out how to make ice cream with crunchy churros in them without the help of any celebrities.

Slapfish Coastal Seafood Kitchen has discovered coconut shrimp. 

Tacodeli is using bison, Taco John’s has new crunchy flatbread items, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has the very on-trend item of chicken, bacon, and ranch.

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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