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Menu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and IHOPMenu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and IHOP

Plus innovation at &Pizza, Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar, Beyond Juicery & Eatery, Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, Burgerville, Cinnaholic, Dairy Queen, Dave & Buster’s , Dunn Brothers, The Flying Biscuit Café, Fogo de Chão, Golden Chick, Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream, HTeaO Huddle House, Juice it up!, Krak Boba, Krispy Kreme, Layne’s Chicken Fingers, Mendocino Farms, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Mooyah, Naf Naf Grill, Next Level Burger and Veggie Grill by Next Level, Old Chicago Pizza & Taproom, Panda Express, Paris Baguette, Pekins Restaurant & Bakery, Playa Bowls, Ruby Slipper, Salata Salad Kitchen, 7-Eleven, Sizzler, Velvet Taco, Voodoo Doughnut, Wayback Burgers, Wings Etc. Grill & Pub, and World of Beer

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

September 6, 2024

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It turns out that Dunn Brothers does have a bunch of pumpkin items for the season, although last week we said they didn’t seem to.

So do Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar, Cinnaholic, Dairy Queen, IHOP, Juice it up!, Next Level Burger and Veggie Grill by Next Level, Paris Baguette, Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, Playa Bowls, and Salata Salad Kitchen.

But pumpkin’s not the only thing going on these days. Taylor Swift is on tour, and Ruby Slipper has a cocktail flight in her honor.

And its Oktoberfest, too. You might think that would start in October, but it doesn’t, and the occasion is being marked by, Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar and Burgerville, but not by World of Beer (which, if memory serves, didn’t do anything for Oktoberfest last year, either), but it does have new items loosely associated with football. 

Also, Sizzler has announced the return of Cheese Toast Month. Why not?

Taco Bell’s Baja Blast Gelato has been much anticipated in some circles, and their wait is over. Others apparently greatly missed &Pizza’s Farmer’s Daughter pie, which is returning next week.

Bruster’s Real Ice Cream has apple treats, and HTeaO has a drink called the Dirty Chai Apple Crisp. 

Voodoo Doughnut has a Dirty Chai Doughnut

Krispy Kreme is celebrating the 65th anniversary of Barbie, and Handel’s has ice cream inspired by the PB&J 

There are new sauces at Old Chicago and Panda Express, and a new wing seasoning at Golden Chick.

McDonald’s is trying out smaller McFlurry treats in smaller packaging, and 7-Eleven has a new Slurpee that combines Coca-Cola and Oreo cookies.

There are a bunch of new items from Dave & Buster’s, Wings Etc., Fogo de Chão, and Mendocino Farms, and Naf Naf Grill has new meatballs.

Mooyah Burgers, Fries & Shakes has new fries and shakes, but apparently no new burgers.

The fries, incidentally, are made with sweet potatoes and come with vanilla ice cream, which is interesting, particularly since you can get regular fries basically as part of a sundae at Friendly’s.

Wayback Burgers does have a new burger, fries, and shake.

Moe’s Southwest Grill is letting customers add Cheez-Its to whatever they want for free, and Huddle House has waffle tacos.

Layne’s Chicken Fingers now has chicken wraps, Beyond Juicery & Eatery has breakfast burritos, and The Flying Biscuit Café has a burger bowl.

There are all sorts of new drinks at Krak Boba, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has fried green tomatoes and shrimp.

 

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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