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Menu Tracker: New items from Chick-fil-A, Sonic Drive-In, and Taco BellMenu Tracker: New items from Chick-fil-A, Sonic Drive-In, and Taco Bell

Plus innovation at Beef-A-Roo, Buddy's Bar-b-Q, Carl’s Jr., Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Chick N Max, Chill-N Nitrogen Ice Cream, Chopped Leaf, Dave's Hot Chicken, Dig, Firehouse Subs, Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, Frutta Bowls, Honeygrow, HTeaO, Jeremiah’s Italian Ice, Jet’s Pizza, Matchbox, Miguel’s Jr., O’Charley’s, Pollo Campero, Qdoba, Round Table Pizza, Taco Cabana, Taco John’s, and Velvet Taco

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

September 27, 2024

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Clockwise from top left: New menu offerings from Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A, Sonic Drive-In, and Carl's Jr.Courtesy of the restaurant companies

Before the pandemic, Firehouse Subs fans enjoyed its Hot Sauce Bar, lined with a dozen or more ways to spice up their sandwiches. Those bars were taken down in March of 2020 for obvious reasons, but now they’re back!

The timing’s certainly right: Sauces are in, especially spicy ones. This week we have new sauces from Taco Bell and Pollo Campero.

Dave's Hot Chicken doesn’t have a new sauce, but it did make its hottest sauce even hotter.

Does pimento cheese count as a sauce? Probably not, but Chick-fil-A has it now, at any rate, and is offering it as a side, and Qdoba has a new spicier queso. Along similar lines, sort of, Buddy's Bar-b-Q now has mac & cheese.

Halloween’s approaching, and you’ll see plenty of appropriately themed items next week. But for now, Sonic has a new green apple drink — apples being super-duper trendy this fall — with salted caramel boba that you could imagine are eyeballs if you wanted to.

Oh, and Carl’s Jr. has some new Ghost Burgers, which are both spicy and seasonally thematic.

Chick N Max has a new bowl with mashed potatoes and chicken, Chill-N Nitrogen Ice Cream is observing Hispanic Heritage Month, which for complex reasons is Sept. 15-Oct. 15, with appropriately themed flavors, and there are new shakes at Beef-A-Roo.

Related:Chick-fil-A is now offering pimento cheese as a side item

Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen has a new cocktail, Chopped Leaf has new branded items that it’s folding into kids menus, and there are new seasonal menus from Dig and Matchbox.

O’Charley’s also has a bunch of new items, including many “value inspired plates,” or V.I.P.s.

Miguel’s Jr. has new breakfast items, Round Table Pizza has a trio of new sides, and Frutta Bowls has new coffee items with the help of La Colombe.

Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana has a four-cheese pie, Jet’s Pizza has a big new cookie, Taco John’s has new soft-shell tacos, and Taco Cabana has new chipotle-lime chicken.

HTeaO has a new peach cobbler iced tea, which probably makes sense in its home state of Texas, Jeremiah’s Italian Ice has a pumpkin item, which makes sense everywhere, Honeygrow is repurposing its Sriracha tahini sauce, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has Guinness stout and a smash burger in it.

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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