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Menu Tracker: New items from Wingstop, Taco Bell, and PopeyesMenu Tracker: New items from Wingstop, Taco Bell, and Popeyes

Plus innovation at Bob Evans, Bojangles, Bonanza and Ponderosa Steakhouses, Buona, Chevys Fresh Mex, Church’s Texas Chicken, Cousins Subs, Erbert & Gerbert’s, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, Golden Chick, Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream, Jamba, Jim ‘N Nick’s, Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que, Pickleman’s Gourmet Café, Pizza Guys, Roy Rogers Restaurants, Smashburger, Taco Cabana, Taco John’s , Tijuana Flats, Velvet Taco, and WaBa Grill

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

February 15, 2024

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Lent started on Wednesday, and that means many, many restaurant chains across the country are adding seafood items on the menu. That includes Bojangles, Church’s Texas Chicken, Cousins Subs, Erbert & Gerbert’s, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, Golden Chick, Pickleman’s Gourmet Café, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Roy Rogers, Taco Cabana, Taco John’s, Tijuana Flats, and WaBa Grill.

Sister casual-dining chains Bonanza and Ponderosa are offering items with bourbon maple glaze, and one of them is salmon, so I suppose that counts too.

Buona, an Italian beef sandwich chain in Chicago, takes its own approach to Lent by not adding fish and instead removing beef from one item with the annual offering of its Pepper and Egg Sandwich.

A couple of years ago, as plant-based proteins were on the rise, there was a question as to whether such meat analogs were permissible on Friday during Lent, and the consensus seemed to be “Sure. Why not?”

Is that why Smashburger has chosen to add jackfruit-based patties as a new option? You’d have to ask them.

Other chains have other fish to fry, so to speak. Wingstop is bringing back its hot honey rub, Taco Bell has introduced its version of an empanada, and Pizza Guys is highlighting its most frequently selected toppings on four special pies. Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que is taking its guests on a tour of regional barbecue, and Jim ‘N Nick’s has a new jalapeño cheddar sausage, plus items highlighting it. Chevys Fresh Mex has a number of seasonal specials, Jamba has new bowls, Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream has special cherry flavors this month, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has hot honey.

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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