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Menu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Carl’s Jr., and Hardee’sMenu Tracker: New items from McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Carl’s Jr., and Hardee’s

Plus innovation at BurgerFi, California Pizza Kitchen, Carvel, Condado Tacos, El Pollo Loco, Eureka!, Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, Hat Creek Burger Company , Holey Grail Donuts, Jersey Mike’s Subs, Jimmy John’s, Mendocino Farms, NaanStop, Nekter Juice Bar, Original Rainbow Cone, Scooter’s Coffee, Shake Shack , Smoothie King, Taco Cabana, Ted’s Montana Grill, Velvet Taco, Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux, and Wings Etc.

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

May 24, 2024

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Is summer a season or a state of mind?

People ask each other, “How’s your summer?” — a question rarely asked about any other season — and summer has an unofficial start, Memorial Day, although the calendar will insist that we have to wait for almost another month for it actually to begin.

There is no unofficial start to winter.

So summer either is or is not about to begin, depending on how you measure such things. Either way, some restaurant chains are pulling out the stops.

There are whole new seasonal lineups from California Pizza Kitchen, Eureka!, and Mendocino Farms, additional watermelon items from NaanStop and Walk-On’s, and barbecue-themed items from Shake Shack and Velvet Taco.

Chick-fil-A is reprising its summertime peach shake for the 15th year.

But there are other things to celebrate, too. Ted’s Montana Grill is marking National Hamburger Day, McDonald’s is honoring grandmothers, and Carvel is celebrating its own birthday (it’s definitely old enough to be a grandmother itself).

Del Taco is reprising its award-winning birria menu, and there are new spicy items from Carl’s Jr. (but only in Los Angeles), Jimmy John’s, Condado Tacos, Hat Creek Burger Company, and Wings Etc. (but only in three Missouri towns).

BurgerFi has a chicken sandwich now, Hardee’s has blueberry biscuits, Holey Grail Donuts has doughnut holes, and Smoothie King has its first drinks over ice.

Related:McDonald’s new Grandma McFlurry shines a light on the loneliness epidemic

Scooter’s now offers extra-large drinks and Nekter Juice Bar has new pitaya options.

Jersey Mike’s has some new sauces, Original Rainbow Cone has new sliced ice cream combinations (that’s its thing), El Pollo Loco has some new quesadillas, and Taco Cabana has tortas.

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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