Is it a happy coincidence or is it orchestrated that just as Halloween approaches the ghost pepper is trending like crazy?
Reportedly so-named because its heat can sneak up on you like a phantom, ghost peppers at restaurant chains tend to be considerably more muted than they are raw, and they are all over the place.
Subway has a new bread named for the chiles, and Penn Station East Coast Subs is offering ghost pepper cheese on sandwiches free of charge.
Ghost pepper sauce is on the new Ghost Burrito at Hot Head Burritos and on the Scary Hot Fries at Eureka!
Incidentally, autumn is when peppers are harvested in case you feel like making a seasonal play with them.
Speaking of which, there are seasonal specials from Burgerville, Church’s Texas Chicken, and Chopt.
Halloween specials abound. They’re at Burger King (along with an 8-ounce tub of ranch dressing at select locations), Cinnaholic, Dunkin’, Fiiz Drinks, Smalls Sliders, Tous Les Jours, Voodoo Doughnut, and arguably Fuzzy’s Taco Shop.
Popeyes is ready for Thanksgiving with its seasonal Turkey, and Wetzel’s Pretzels is jumping ahead to Christmas with frozen hot chocolate.
Brooklyn Dumpling Shop has jumped on the SpongeBob SquarePants anniversary bandwagon, but 16 Handles is focused instead on season 2 of Squid Game.
There are whole seasonal menu rollouts at Another Broken Egg Café, Friendly’s, Lazy Dog, Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub, and Tony Roma’s.
Newk’s Eatery has a new line of wraps.
Then there are a bunch of chains that are just doing their own thing &Pizza is doing a new riff on its Farmer’s Daughter Pizza that it recently brought back.
Bonanza and Ponderosa Steakhouses have new tenderloin options, Chester’s Chicken has new chicken bites, KFC has new sauces and tenders, La Madeleine has new crêpes among other things, Oakberry has new layered smoothies no-doubt intended for social media, Pita Pit has packaged brownies, Potbelly has a sandwich with mac & cheese on it, Tropical Smoothie Cafe has lavender drink that shimmers, and Velvet Taco’s Weekly Taco Feature has all sorts of things on it, including chicken tenders and pork belly.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]
