Pizza Hut is returning to its thin-crust roots with a somewhat trending pie type: Chicago tavern-style. Perhaps not as well-known as that city’s deep-dish pizza, tavern-style is more widely consumed there, because you just can’t eat deep-dish that often.
Marco’s Pizza has new spicy pizza, among other chile-spiked items.
Subway has new lightish, less expansive savory snacks that it’s calling Dippers, and Panera has a new beverage line.
Better Buzz Coffee Roasters, a smallish chain (24 units) out of San Diego, has a new line of energy drinks, and there are also new beverages at Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar, Buffalo’s Café, Gong Cha, Häagen-Dazs, Juice it Up!, Main Event, Native Grill & Wings, Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub, Potbelly, Taco Cabana, and Topgolf.
Summer just started with a bang, so the lineup of new beverages shouldn’t be much of a shocker, but keep an eye out in the mocktail space. There’s a lot going on in the world of soft drinks dressed up as cocktails: Put sugar on the rim, charge $3 more.
What else? &Pizza has a new dessert, Insomnia Cookies has a new ice cream (and also cookies), Marble Slab Creamery is swirling existing flavors together for a colorful treat, Nick the Greek is enrobing its tart yogurt in chocolate, and 16 Handles is making fun of the fact that McDonald’s soft-serve machines are so frequently broken by offering a frozen yogurt it says tastes like French fries.
Crisp & Green has wraps, Qdoba has a spicy new steak, Red Robin has a giant Olympics-themed burger, Taziki’s has a lamb burger, Honeygrow is reprising its summertime crab stir-fry, Sunny Street Café has a bunch of new pancakes, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature is made with mushrooms and asparagus.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]