Sponsored By
Menu Tracker

Menu Tracker

Menu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Tim Hortons, and TGI FridaysMenu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Tim Hortons, and TGI Fridays

Plus innovation at Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar, Beyond Juicery + Eatery, Blank Street Coffee, Blue Bottle Coffee, Cicis Pizza, Crumbl Cookies, Culver’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, Häagen-Dazs, Home Run Inn, Honeygrow, The Human Bean, I Heart Mac & Cheese, Just Salad, Mooyah, Noodles & Company, 16 Handles, Shake Shack, Sonny’s BBQ, Sweetgreen, Tacodeli, Taziki’s Mediterranean Café, and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 16, 2023

26 Slides
menu tracker

Already have an account?

In the olden days, if you wanted a boost of energy you would drink coffee. If you wanted it a little more gently, you’d have tea. 

Now there are all sorts of options, including high-impact energy drinks that have become so popular that chains are making their own versions of them.

Shake Shack is doing that with a twist by adding its own caffeine concoction (all-natural, it insists) to lemonade.

Sure. Why not?

Blank Street Coffee, for its part, is turning the hot cold brew trend into an intensified energy drink with its new Cold Brew Shot.

Blue Bottle Coffee, meanwhile, is making its own coffee soda.

Elsewhere in beverages, Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar has lemonade cocktails, Tacodeli has its own take on Ranch Water, TGI Fridays has summer drinks, Beyond Juicery Eatery has new frozen lemonade, and so does Häagen-Dazs, while The Human Bean has frozen hot chocolate and tea.

In shakes, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers has Key lime and berry ones, and Mooyah is bringing back its liquefied version of S’mores. Dave’s Hot Chicken is giving its guests the option of adding M&M pieces or Oreo crumbles to its shakes for an extra $2; extra Instagram “likes” are free of charge.

Home Run Inn has a pizza with a sauce that it insists tastes like beer.

McDonald’s is spicing up its Quarter Pounder, Culver’s has a new custard flavor (stay tuned for another one next month), and Noodles & Company is testing new stuffed pasta.

I Heart Mac & Cheese has empanadas now, Crumbl Cookies has an offering made with Rice Krispies (and it can spell it that way because it’s doing it in partnership with Kellogg’s), and Taziki’s has a lamb burger.

Honeygrow’s crab stir-fry is back and so is Sweetgreen’s peach salad. Tim Hortons has strawberry specials.

Just Salad has seasonal offerings too.

Cicis Pizza has a new stuffed crust, 16 Handles has a nostalgic-sounding ice, Sonny’s BBQ has a fried green tomato sandwich, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is made with mahi mahi.

 

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

Subscribe Nation's Restaurant News Newsletters
Get the latest breaking news in the industry, analysis, research, recipes, consumer trends, the latest products and more.