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Menu Tracker: New items from Starbucks, Subway, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Jimmy John’sMenu Tracker: New items from Starbucks, Subway, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Jimmy John’s

Plus innovation at Bonchon Korean Fried Chicken, City Barbeque, Cracker Barrel, Ellianos Coffee, El Pollo Loco, Erbert & Gerbert’s, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, Lucky Strike, On the Border, Pizza Inn, Rachel’s Kitchen, Roy Rogers, Sweet Paris, Thirsty Lion, Velvet Taco, Viva Chicken, Voodoo Brewing Co., and Ziggi’s Coffee

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

October 25, 2024

22 Slides
Jimmy John's, Starbucks, Voodoo Brewing Co, and City Barbeque offerings

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For a very brief period, so brief that it didn’t have time to make it into Menu Tracker, &pizza was offering Marion Berry Knots in the Washington, D.C., market, which were sweet dough knots stuffed with marionberries, topped with icing, dusted in powdered sugar, and accompanied by marketing that made it very, very clear that the chain was making fun of late mayor Marion Barry, who was famously busted for drug use. “The Marion Berry Knots have enough powdered sugar that will have customers bumping elbows to order and even force the DEA to look twice,” it said in an email.

It did not go over well, at all.

Meanwhile, Pizza Inn is offering a pie called the Bambi & Friends Pizza, topped with venison, wild boar, and elk. But it’s only being offered in hunting communities, so maybe they’ll be fine. You gotta know your audience.

Halloween continues to barrel down upon us, and there are new thematic items from Ellianos Coffee, Sweet Paris, Voodoo Brewing Co., and Ziggi’s Coffee.

Starbucks has new items that could be Halloween-themed, but in fact, they’re tied to the premiere of the movie Wicked.

It might seem a bit early for Christmas marketing, but Cracker Barrel doesn’t think so. Nor, apparently do Freddy’s or Subway, who are already rolling out the chocolate and mint.

Related:Starbucks introduces new Wicked beverages and merch in Universal Pictures collab

Jimmy John’s has two new items that could pass for April Fool’s jokes.

Bonchon, Buffalo Wild Wings, El Pollo Loco, and Viva Chicken have new sauces, On the Border has upgraded its fajitas, Lucky Strike has a whole new menu, Thirsty Lion has a bunch of fall specials, and Rachel’s Kitchen has a new salad.

Erbert & Gerbert’s is playing rotisserie chicken, Roy Rogers has a new cheesesteak breakfast wrap, City Barbeque has brisket chili, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is helping to support Breast Cancer research.

 

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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