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Menu Tracker: New items from Starbucks, Taco Bell, Dunkin’, and Carl’s Jr.Menu Tracker: New items from Starbucks, Taco Bell, Dunkin’, and Carl’s Jr.

Plus innovation at Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, Bonefish Grill, California Pizza Kitchen, Caribou Coffee, Charleys Cheesesteak & Wings, Cinnaholic, Cold Stone Creamery, Devoción Coffee, Dutch Bros, Emmy Squared Pizza, Fogo de Chão, HTeaO, Hungry Howie’s, IHOP, Jersey Mike’s Subs, Just Salad, Miguel’s Jr., Next Level Burger, North Italia, Peet’s Coffee, Philz Coffee, Salt & Straw , Scooter’s Coffee, Shake Shack, Shipley Do-Nuts, Slim Chickens, Sonic Drive-In, Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Tous Les Jours, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Veggie Grill by Next Level, Velvet Taco, Whataburger, Yogurtland, and Ziggi’s Coffee

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

November 8, 2024

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Is cranberry-orange the new holiday flavor? Starbucks seems to think so given its latest seasonal lineup, and it’s pretty smart about those sorts of things. Then again the Oleato olive-oil-and-coffee drinks it rolled out last year are being phased out this month.

Nobody’s perfect.

Peet’s Coffee is betting on blood orange, as is Carl’s Jr., though not in coffee.

Other coffeehouse chains have their own seasonal lineups, including Devoción Coffee, a five-unit chain based in New York City that is combining rosemary and cinnamon with coffee.

There are also new options from Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, Caribou Coffee, Dunkin’, Dutch Bros., HTeaO, Philz Coffee, Scooter’s Coffee, Tim Hortons, and Ziggi’s Coffee

There are new shakes from Next Level Burger, Veggie Grill by Next Level, Shake Shack, Shipley Do-Nuts, Slim Chickens, Whataburger, and Sonic Drive-In, which also has some new dirty soda options.

Bonefish Grill has new cocktails tied to the release in movie theaters this month of Wicked.

There are big new seasonal menus at Emmy Squared Pizza and North Italia, and Fogo de Chão has two new entrées that guests can buy on top of its all-you-can-eat “Churrasco Experience.”

Salt & Straw has a hole lineup of ice creams meant to replicate Thanksgiving dinner, but all in ice cream form, and there are also new frozen options from Cold Stone Creamery.

Related:Menu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Arby’s, and Taco Bell

Smaller seasonal selections are on offer from Cinnaholic, Tous Les Jours, and Yogurtland.

Hungry Howie’s has chicken & waffles pizza.

Taco Bell is offering new frozen drinks nationally as well as a bunch of regional specials, California Pizza Kitchen has a flight of miniature butter cakes, Charleys Cheesesteak & Wings has a new rub for its rings and a summery sounding lemonade, and Tropical Smoothie Cafe has some Hawaiian-themed specials.

Just Salad has a new collab with influencer Justine Doiron.

Miguel’s Jr. is offering tamales, as it generally does at this time of year, and Jersey Mike’s Subs is offering pastrami, which is unusual for it.

IHOP’s pancake of the month is maple bacon, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is inspired by chicken Parmigiana.

 

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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