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Arby’s enlists professional wrestlers Austin Theory and Grayson Walker to promote Beef WeekArby’s enlists professional wrestlers Austin Theory and Grayson Walker to promote Beef Week

The restaurant chain’s loyalty program members can buy five Classic Roast Beef sandwiches for $5

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 12, 2024

2 Min Read
arbys beef week t shirt
Arby's and WWE's co-branded T-shirtCourtesy of Arby's

Arby’s has added new T-shirts to its Beef Week promotion, which is June 10-16, and they’re available on a professional wrestling web site.

The quick-service chain, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Inspire Brands, has partnered with World Wrestling Entertainment tag team duo Austin Theory and Grayson Walker to help promote the week, during which loyalty program members can order five Classic Roast Beef sandwiches for a total of $5 — an offer the chain introduced more than three decades ago. The shirts are available at shop.wwe.com for $32.99.

As part of the promotion, the WWE tag team champions posted videos on Instagram for their 169,000 followers.

In one video, Theory shoes off his beefy biceps and the team explains the deal and how to become an Arby’s Rewards member.

In another one, a shirtless Theory and Waller are magically bedecked in the co-branded T-shirts and Theory declares with typical bravado, “This is one shirt I’m okay with covering the greatest physique in all of WWE.”

The promotion dovetails well with Arby’s “We have the Meats” branding and also is part of a broad trend in restaurant marketing of using celebrities’ star power to amplify their messaging.

Arby’s is a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Inspire Brands, and its sister brand Dunkin’ has long worked with celebrities to boost its image as a fun brand and to raise overall awareness of its products, most recently working with rapper Jelly Roll for National Doughnut Day last week.

Related:Why is every restaurant partnering with celebrities now?

Dunkin’ also aired an ad during the Super Bowl featuring the DunKings, a fictional band whose members include actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and professional football legend Tom Brady as they try to impress Affleck’s wife, Jennifer Lopez.

Affleck has appeared in numerous adds for Dunkin’ who also periodically enlist lifestyle-oriented celebrity Martha Stewart both to promote the brand generally and to sell merch, including Martini shakers.

Another Inspire Brands concept, Sonic Drive-In, worked with country singer Reba McEntireto promote the restaurant as a great date-night venue for Valentine’s Day.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

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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/
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Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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