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Menu Tracker: New items from Wendy’s, Dunkin’ and Chili’sMenu Tracker: New items from Wendy’s, Dunkin’ and Chili’s

Plus innovation at Baja Fresh, Freebirds World Burrito, Hopdoddy Huddle House, Norms, Pollo Tropical, Red Lobster, Studio Movie Grill, Taco John’s, Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe, Toppers Pizza, Torchy’s Tacos, Velvet Taco, and Yogurtland

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

February 4, 2022

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Many pizza chains, and some others, are going to be offering heart-shaped pizzas over the next couple of weeks. We’re not giving each of them its own slide, but we’re mentioning it here in case you don’t remember it from past Valentine’s Days. They’re generally priced around the same as round pizzas.

Elsewhere on the theme of love being in the air, Chili’s Grill & Bar has a Valentine’s Day themed Margarita of the month, Dunkin’ has heart-shaped doughnuts and a pink Refresher, and Yogurtland’s flavor of the month is chocolate-covered strawberry.

Red Lobster doesn’t care. It’s celebrating LobsterFest instead with some new specials (Date Night Feast for Two, Lobster Topped Stuffed Flounder and Bacon Mac & Cheese) and a host of returning items, all available for as long as Red Lobster decides that it’s still LobsterFest.

Studio Movie Grill, for its part, is celebrating the release of the Ruben Fleischer film Uncharted.

The big news is Wendy’s new hot honey chicken items, available indefinitely, but Baja Fresh, for its part, has chicken flautas, Norms has a bunch of birria dishes and Pollo Tropical is letting guests put sliced avocado on whatever they like, for a price.

Hopdoddy has a tempura tuna burger.

Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe is bringing back shrimp kebabs for a couple of months, but Huddle House has made its Southwestern and homestyle burritos and bowls, introduced last year as limited-time offers, permanent items.

Taco John’s has taken its chicken tenders out of their shell and now is selling them in bulk and Torchy’s Tacos is letting guests have burritos in bowls now.

Freebirds World Burrito has new meatless and gluten-free options,

Toppers Pizza has some new cheesy pizzas and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is the increasingly popular combination of chicken, bacon and ranch.

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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