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Menu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Panda ExpressMenu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Panda Express

Plus innovation at Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, Buffalo’s Cafe, BurgerFi, Burgerville, Detroit Wing Company, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, Hurricane Grill and Wings, Lou Malnati’s, Mellow Mushroom, Miller’s Ale House, Mooyah, Native Foods, Next Level Burger, Rapid Fire Pizza, Rush Bowls, Sajj Mediterranean, Taco Cabana, and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

March 9, 2023

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McDonald’s has renamed its fried chicken sandwich the McCrispy, and it’s pretty surprising that it hasn’t done that before. It also has introduced new variations of the sandwich.

Detroit Wing Company also has new chicken sandwiches.

Rapid Fire Pizza has a new pie with three types of pepperoni on it, which you might think is a first, but in fact it’s at least the fourth in the past year and a half. Casey’s, Papa Murphy’s, and Happy Joe’s have done it too.

The NCAA basketball championship tournament will be upon us next week, and Miller’s Ale House is celebrating with the Big 16 Burger, which has 16 toppings, and if you finish it, you win a hat!

Buffalo’s Cafe, Hurricane Grill and Wings, Mooyah, and Next Level Burger also have new burgers, but BurgerFi and Burgerville don’t; they have new shakes.

Starbucks also has a new sweet drink, with cinnamon and caramel, and it’s a permanent addition to the menu.

Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii has new sweet coffee drinks, too, but just through spring.

Mellow Mushroom has a seasonal cocktail, and so does Grimaldi’s Pizzeria. Rush Bowls has Mai Tai Bowl, but it doesn’t have alcohol.

Native Foods has a Cubano, Lou Malnati’s has barbecue chicken pizza, Panda Express has sizzling shrimp, and Taco Cabana has chocolate chimichurris.

Sajj Mediterranean has build-your-own family meals, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is inspired by Huli Huli Chicken.

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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