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Menu Tracker: New items from Starbucks, Buffalo Wild Wings and Sonic Drive-InMenu Tracker: New items from Starbucks, Buffalo Wild Wings and Sonic Drive-In

Plus additions at Baja Fresh, Bareburger, Bartaco, Baskin-Robbins, Chuck E. Cheese, Cotton Patch Café, Dutch Bros Coffee, El Pollo Loco, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, Hurricane Grill & Wings, Insomnia Cookies, Jamba Juice, Jinya Ramen Bar, Mooyah Burgers, Fries and Shakes, O’Charley’s , Peet’s Coffee, Philly’s Best, Pizza Guys , PJ’s Coffee, Rapid Fired Pizza, Robeks, Rōti, Sonny’s BBQ, Tacodeli, TooJay’s Deli, Torchy’s Tacos, Velvet Taco, Wienerschnitzel and Hamburger Stand, Yogurtland and Zaxby’s

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

March 4, 2021

34 Slides
menu traacker march 4

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Happy oat milk week. While that’s not an official thing, maybe it should be as the popular dairy alternative is now available at Starbucks locations across the country, and new oat milk options also are available at Dutch Bros Coffee, Peet’s Coffee, PJ’s Coffee and Yogurtland. It’s the frozen yogurt chain’s first oat milk offering.

In other firsts, Bareburger is testing what might be the first use by a restaurant chain of a plant-based seafood substitute with two griddled not-tuna burgers at two locations.

Buffalo Wild Wings has a new wing sauce flavored with white truffles, which might seem like a first, but various casual dining chains, and some quick-service ones, have offered truffled items in the past. On the other hand, it might well be the first wing sauce with truffles at a chain.

Mooyah Burgers, Fries and Shakes is making an upscale move with its new burger, dressed with herbes de Provence and lavender syrup, and Sonic Drive-In’s new burger has the fancy touch of mesquite butter.

O’Charley’s has some new seafood items for Lent, and Rapid Fired Pizza is pushing a meatless pizza for Lent called the Roasted Margherita. Margherita pizzas usually have tomato sauce, but this one has white sauce, and in a similar vein, Philly’s Best, which prides itself on its authenticity, is nonetheless offering a bacon ranch chicken “cheesesteak.”

Insomnia Cookies and TooJay’s Deli are getting a jump on St. Patrick’s Day with special items, and Bartaco is continuing its five-week celebration of Margaritas — this week with one made with pomegranate.

Chuck E. Cheese is celebrating the approach of spring with a bunch of colorful sweets.

Baja Fresh has two new enchiladas — one red and one green — and Cotton Patch Café, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria and Hurricane Grill & Wings have introduced springtime specials. 

El Pollo Loco has a new line of portable lunch boxes, Jinya Ramen Bar has introduced Tsukemen — a type of ramen in which broth and noodles are served separately — and Rōti has jumped on the riced cauliflower bandwagon with a new bowl.

Speaking of bandwagons, there’s a new fried chicken sandwich from Pollo Campero, Zaxby’s has made the fried chicken sandwich it tested last year a permanent item nationwide, and the monthly and weekly specials, respectively, from Torchy’s Tacos and Velvet Taco both have fried chicken.

Pizza Guys has introduced a Street Taco Flatbread.

Tacodeli, meanwhile, is offering carne asada tacos, and Sonny’s BBQ has a sandwich made with baby back ribs, off the bone, of course.

Robeks now offers avocado toast, Jamba Juice has a jazzed up lemonade smoothie, and sister chains Wienerschnitzel and Hamburger Stand are promoting globally influenced hot dogs.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

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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