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Menu Tracker: New items from Dunkin’, Olive Garden, and Carrabba’s Italian GrillMenu Tracker: New items from Dunkin’, Olive Garden, and Carrabba’s Italian Grill

Plus innovation at Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, Bellagreen, Benihana, Bigfoot Fry Co., Bonchon Korean Fried Chicken, Broken Yolk Cafe, Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, Chill-N Nitrogen Ice Cream, Cinnaholic, Flying Biscuit Café, Friendly’s, Gott’s Roadside, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream, Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant , Jeremiah’s Italian Ice, Jinya Ramen Bar, La Madeleine, Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub, O’Charley’s Restaurant & Bar, Paris Baguette, Pure Green, Rita’s Italian Ice & Frozen Custard, Rock & Brews, Ruby Slipper, Salt & Straw, Velvet Taco, Wayback Burgers

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

December 5, 2024

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menu tracker 12.5.24

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We know it’s December because Rudy the Reindeer is the Conehead Sundae currently available at Friendly’s, and also because of the holiday items available at Cinnaholic, Dunkin’, Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream, La Madeleine, Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub, O’Charley’s Restaurant & Bar, Paris Baguette, and Salt & Straw.

There are also a bunch of minty items, which I suppose you could call holiday-adjacent, such as the ones at Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, Chill-N Nitrogen Ice Cream, Gott’s Roadside, Jeremiah’s Italian Ice, Rita’s Italian Ice & Frozen Custard, Ruby Slipper, and Wayback Burgers.

And there are new candy- and dessert-themed items at Broken Yolk Café, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Flying Biscuit Café, at Pure Green.

The menu at Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant just underwent a major overhaul, and there are also new seasonal menus at Bellagreen and Grimaldi’s Pizzeria

Benihana is taking part in a wagyu beef promotion sponsored by the Japanese government, Rock & Brews has a special cocktail in collaboration with Bob Dylan, Bonchon has new fried cheese on a stick, and Jinya Ramen bar has curry rice balls.

Olive Garden has brought back two items that it removed during the pandemic, Bigfoot Fry Co., a virtual brand of Wienerschnitzel, has started wrapping fries in tortillas and calling them burritos, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has smashed meatballs.

Related:Menu Tracker: New items from Jimmy John’s, Krispy Kreme, and Fleming’s

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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