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Menu Tracker: New items from Taco Bell, Burger King, and Jack in the BoxMenu Tracker: New items from Taco Bell, Burger King, and Jack in the Box

Plus innovation at Arby’s Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, Bruster’s Real Ice Cream, Cava, Chicken Salad Chick, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Culver’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Dog Haus, Ellianos Coffee, First Watch, The Flying Biscuit Café, Friendly’s, Gott’s Roadside, The Green Turtle, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, Huddle House, IHOP, Jinya Ramen Bar, McAlister’s Deli, Next Level Burger, Noodles & Company, Oakberry, Original ChopShop, Paris Baguette, Playa Bowls, Potbelly, Punch Bowl Social, Rock & Brews, Snooze, Sonny’s BBQ, Taco Bell, Twisted Root Burger, Velvet Taco, Vitality Bowls, Wayback Burgers, White Castle, Yogurtland, and Ziggi’s Coffee

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 7, 2024

41 Slides
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LGBTQ Pride month celebrations continue with special items from Punch Bowl Social and Snooze. The Flying Biscuit Café also has pancakes with rainbow sprinkles, but it’s unclear whether that’s pride related or simply pretty. They’re called Strawberry Dreamsicle Pancakes, but Dreamsicle has come to mean orange-and-vanilla, so it’s unclear what exactly is going on there, but there are other chains offering that flavor combination, which is sweeping the nation like pumpkin spice in late summer. That includes the Orange Cream Pancakes that are IHOP’s Pancake of the month.

Actually, that’s the only orange-and-cream flavor for this week. The focus seems to be more on summery fruits, like cherries at  Friendly’s, Gott’s Roadside, Potbelly, and Yogurtland (if someone understands the meaning behind the Pac-Man tie-in, please let me know).

Colorado-based Ziggi’s Coffee is all about peaches, which is interesting since the season for that fruit in that state isn’t until August.

There are strawberry items at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, First Watch (which is also offering its first spike juice flavored with another popular summer fruit, watermelon), Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, Original ChopShop, Playa Bowls, Taco Bell, Vitality Bowls, and Wayback Burgers, among others.

Related:Taco Bell’s beverage innovation continues with Limonada Freeze

The Greene Turtle has some new watermelon drinks, too.

Besides those chains, there are new drinks at Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, Ellianos Coffee, McAlister’s Deli, Next Level Burger (if shakes count), Oakberry (if smoothies count), and Rock & Brews.

Arby’s has new burgers that are sort of tied to Father’s Day, and Culver’s is reprising it’s Pretzel Haus Pub Burger.

Twisted Root Burger has a new burger, too (and a shake, and pizza), and Paris Baguette has a special cake for Father’s Day.

Burger King is testing new chicken items, Cava is the latest fast-casual chain to add steak to its repertoire, and Chicken Salad Chick has a new dessert.

Huddle House has burritos, Sonny’s BBQ has new bowls, and Noodles & Company has a new baked pasta.

Dave’s Hot Chicken has nuggets now, and Jack in the Box has new meal developed in collaboration with Ice Cube.

White Castle has new and returning flavors of chicken rings, Dog Haus has Hawaii-inspired items.

Bruster’s has special ice cream and sorbet flavors for the month, Jinya Ramen Bar has a broth-free ramen, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has pork ribs.

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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