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Menu Tracker: New items from Subway, Burger King and Taco BellMenu Tracker: New items from Subway, Burger King and Taco Bell

Plus innovation at Andy’s Frozen Custard, Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar, Bartaco, Bennigan’s, Beyond Juicery & Eatery, BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, Buffalo Wild Wings, Buffalo’s Café, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Cowboy Chicken, Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, Doc Popcorn, El Pollo Loco, Ford's Garage, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, Hopdoddy, Hurricane Grill & Wings, Insomnia Cookies, Jinya Ramen Bar, Miller’s Ale House, Native Foods, Newk’s Eatery, Peet’s Coffee, PJ’s Coffee, 7-Eleven, Sweetfin, Taco Cabana, Tao, Velvet Taco, Wayback Burger and Yogurtland

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

March 11, 2022

34 Slides
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If you think about it, it’s kind of weird that people eat and drink minty things in March because they’re green, and St. Patrick’s Day is in March, and green is a color identified with Ireland.

Nonetheless, Andy’s Frozen Custard is offering a mint cookie concrete, Beyond Juicery & Eatery has Shamrock Detox Smoothie that does not contain shamrock (it could; shamrocks are edible) but does have mint, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria is serving a Mint Julep and Yogurtland has Lucky Irish Mint yogurt.

In other things Irish, Bennigan’s as usual has Irish-themed specials, Ford’s Garage has a St. Patty’s Melt and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is based on bangers & mash, a delicacy of Ireland as well as the United Kingdom.

We are, of course, still in Lent, so Dickey’s Barbecue Pit has some new fish offerings but they haven’t photographed them yet, and El Pollo Loco has a shrimp taco.

On the other hand, Cowboy Chicken has chosen this time to start serving beef — what it calls Cowboy Brisket.

March is also Women’s History Month, and Tao is marking the occasion by offering cocktails named after notable Asian women, including a scientist, a poet from 1,000 years ago and a modern-day advocate for LGBTQ and other causes.

Spring starts in March, and Insomnia Cookies is offering treats with hibiscus, strawberries and poppyseeds.

Burger King, which tested melts in January, has rolled them out nationwide for a limited time.

Wayback Burger, for reasons that are not entirely clear, has decided that now is the time to poke fun at McDonald’s with a larger and pricier take on the Big Mac. It’s also selling fried pickles.

Buffalo’s Café and Hurricane Grill & Wings each have three limited-time burgers, available through May, and Hopdoddy has a “burger” made with Buffalo chicken.

Bartaco is continuing with its five-week Margarita series, Applebee’s has doughnut holes now, BJ’s current Pizookie is made with churros and Buffalo Wild Wings has its own MTN Dew flavor.

Doc Popcorn has popcorn based on the Everything Bagel

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has a burnt caramel cold brew latte, PJ’s Coffee is bringing back its honey macadamia line and Peet’s Coffee has a bunch of new vegan items.

Speaking of vegan items, Native Foods has a bánh mì sandwich made out of seitan, Sweetfin has several new vegan sides and 7-Eleven has a black bean burger.

Subway has two new Italian-inspired subs, Jinya Ramen Bar has a fried chicken bowl, Miller’s Ale House is featuring pulled pork, Taco Cabana has tres leches cake and Newk’s Eatery is promoting its Chipotle Caesar and Jalapeño Ranch dressings.

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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