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The best of Menu Tracker: Highlights of menu items introduced in 2024The best of Menu Tracker: Highlights of menu items introduced in 2024

A look at innovation at &pizza, Black Angus Steakhouse, Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer, Blaze Pizza, Bonefish Grill, Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop, Carl’s Jr., Condado Tacos, Del Taco, Dirty Dough, Domino’s, Firehouse Subs, Fogo de Chão, Harlem Shake, Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, Jack in the Box, Jim ‘N Nick’s, Jimmy John’s, KFC , Kung Fu Tea, Kura Sushi, Kyuramen, Logan’s Roadhouse , Maggiano’s Little Italy , McAlister’s Deli, McDonald’s , Olive Garden, Peet’s Coffee, Pita Pit, Pizza Hut, Rasa, Red Lobster, Schlotzsky’s, Seven Brothers, Shake Shack, 16 Handles, Smashburger, Smoothie King, Sonic Drive-In, Sprinkles, Starbucks, Taco Bell, TGI Fridays, Toasted Yolk Café, True Food Kitchen, Velvet Taco, Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux, Wendy’s, White Castle, and Yampa Sandwich Company

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

December 9, 2024

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It has been a heady year of menu innovation as many operators, struggling with declining traffic, rolled out an ever-broadening array of new menu items to attract an audience of Americans, many of whom showed increasing budget consciousness and limited attention spans. Influencers and other celebrities were recruited to help promote some items, while other items were based on events of the day, from the 25th anniversary of SpongeBob SquarePants to the 65th anniversary of Barbie.

Video game launches got new menu items, as did movie releases.

So did Tax Day and 4/20.

There was chicken disguised as pizza, zero-proof hop water cocktails, cheeseburgers with peanut butter, and a cinnamon roll with bacon.

Obviously the autumn was full of pumpkin spice, but vanilla with orange was the combination of the summer, and there were lighter items, of course, as well as super-indulgent ones.

Read on to look at some of the highlights of menu items introduced over the course of 2024.

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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