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Menu Tracker: New items from Dunkin’, IHOP, and Sonic Drive-InMenu Tracker: New items from Dunkin’, IHOP, and Sonic Drive-In

Plus innovation at Baja Fresh, Blaze Pizza, Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, Burgerville, Friendly’s, Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, Gott’s Roadside, Junior’s Restaurant, La Madeleine, Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub, Nothing Bundt Cakes, Robeks, Snappy Salads, Taco Time, Tender Greens, and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

August 2, 2024

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Smash burgers, pressing down on beef patties on a griddle and cooking them so they have crispy edges and a juicy interior, have been trending for a while now, and the big quick-service chains have taken notice. Jack in the Box offered one earlier this year, and now Sonic Drive-In has one (smaller chains are offering them too, including Burgerfi, Beef-A-Roo, The Pour House, Dave & Buster’s, and Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar).

Smash burgers, pressing down on beef patties on a griddle and cooking them so they have crispy edges and a juicy interior, have been trending for a while now, and the big quick-service chains have taken notice. Jack in the Box offered one earlier this year, and now Sonic Drive-In has one (smaller chains are offering them too, including Burgerfi, Beef-A-Roo, The Pour House,  Dave & Buster’s, and Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar).

Baja Fresh has new Golden State burritos, but it’s unclear what’s so Californian about them (let me know if you know), and Taco Time has a burrito stuffed with pork and cream cheese.

IHOP’s latest Pancake of the Month features lemon Oreos, Bruster’s has s’mores and blueberry cobbler flavored ice cream, and Burgerville is playing with marionberries, as it does at this time of year.

Junior’s, a chain we rarely hear from, has a new layered raspberry cheesecake, Nothing Bundt Cakes has a lemon raspberry Bundt, and La Madeleine has an Olympics-themed tart.

Dunkin’ is leveraging its Dunkin’terns marketing campaign by collaborating with one of those interns, chef-personality Nick DiGiovanni, for new iced coffee creations, just like the chain said it would.

Blaze Pizza, continuing its menu revamping ways, has a new handheld called a Fold, which is like a Calzone, and is the latest chain to dabble in hot honey, which Fuzzy’s Taco Shop is doing, too, and so is Velvet Taco with its Weekly Taco Feature.

Related:Dunkin’ launches ad campaign to promote iced beverages

Snappy Salads, a chain out of Dallas, has new sandwiches, and Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub, in New England, is serving Prime rib on weekends.

Friendly’s has its latest round of kids conehead sundae’s, Gott’s Roadside has a lobster BLT, Tender Greens has Japanese curry, and you can now get ashwagandha and ginseng in your smoothies at Robeks.

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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