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Baskin-Robbins updates its app to allow for 15-minute pickupBaskin-Robbins updates its app to allow for 15-minute pickup

Previously the dessert chain only offered advance ordering of cakes and similar items

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

March 25, 2024

2 Min Read
baskin robbins mobile ordering
Baskin-Robbins' app now allows guests to order ice cream on demand.

Baskin-Robbins has updated its mobile ordering system to allow guests to buy its items on demand, for pickup in as little as 15 minutes. Previously the dessert chain only accepted orders for ice cream cakes and other select items for pickup in 24-48 orders.

The chain of more than 7,600 restaurants worldwide, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Inspire Brands, is also offering app users a $3 discount off purchases of $10 or more, before tax, for a limited time. The app is available via Google Play or Apple’s App Store.

“When we set out to evolve the BR App experience, we kept digital convenience and guest feedback top-of-mind,” senior director for customer marketing & brand experience Nicole Boutwell said in a press release announcing the upgrade. “With these expanded capabilities to our app, guests can enjoy their favorites faster and unlock new ways to celebrate all of life’s moments with ice cream.”

The $3 discount is available for all registered app users through May 17 at participating locations in the all-franchised chain with the promo code TASTY.

The launch comes in the run up to Easter, which is this Sunday, and for which Baskin-Robbins is offering two specialty ice cream cakes. The Petal Pop Cake is a new item of guests’ choice of cake and ice cream flavor decorated with floral ice cream patterns. The Hopscotch the Bunny Cake is a returning seasonal favorite, also with customizable cake and ice cream flavors, plus white chocolate bunny ears and feet surrounded by grass made with icing, plus colorful sprinkles, both retail for around $30 although pricing is at the discretion of the franchisees.

Related:Tech Tracker: How tech plays a role in the rise of dynamic pricing

Restaurants are motivated to encourage their customers to order via their own apps and web sites rather than third-party-delivery services to avoid the fees those services charge and also as a means to record their guests’ data and order history in order to customize incentives.

Customers also tend to spend more money when ordering digitally compared to ordering in person.

 

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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