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Menu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Applebee’sMenu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Applebee’s

Plus additions at B. Good, Black Angus Steakhouse, Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, Dog Haus, Erbert & Gerbert’s, Just Salad, Pieology Pizzeria, Uno Pizzeria & Grill and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

February 5, 2020

13 Slides
Applebees Just Salad Breakfast Salad McDonalds Shamrock mcflurry shake

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Wendy’s is rolling out a comprehensive breakfast menu in early March, including burritos, biscuits and egg croissants, plus a breakfast version of its Baconator and a “Frosty-ccino” made with its signature Frosty mix. Read on for full details, except for prices, which haven’t been announced yet.

In other news from major burger chains, McDonald’s is bringing back its Shamrock Shake nationally for the first time in three years, and accompanying it with an Oreo Shamrock McFlurry.
Just Salad isn’t launching breakfast, but it is offering a “breakfast salad” this month with ingredients such as turkey bacon and hard-boiled egg.

Both Applebee’s and Black Angus Steakhouse are jumping on the bowl bandwagon. B. Good was already there, but now it has one with noodles made from butternut squash.

Erbert & Gerbert’s has two sandwiches with the same toppings, but it’s calling one a bánh mì and the other one an Asian Fusion sandwich.

Bruster’s Real Ice Cream has two chocolate-and-red-fruit specials in time for Valentine’s Day while Dog Haus is sharing the love in a different way, collaborating with a famous chef and giving the proceeds to No Kid Hungry.

In pizza news, Uno’s has a new entry in its De-Lite line, and Pieology has introduced a new sort of crust made mostly from chicken.

Related:Wendy’s to launch systemwide breakfast March

Sonic Drive-In is taking its popular tots, adding nacho toppings and calling them Totchos, and Velvet Taco has another weekly taco feature — this one with cauliflower.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

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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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