---
title: "Menu Tracker: New items from Popeyes, Jimmy John’s, and Dutch Bros"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/50601f76-d5d9-4042-8f64-a793be45b48a
source: "Nation's Restaurant News"
original_url: https://www.nrn.com/food-trends/menu-tracker-new-items-from-popeyes-jimmy-john-s-and-dutch-bros
author: "Bret Thorn"
category: "Coffee & tea"
industry: "Restaurants"
segment: "Coffee & tea"
published: 2026-05-08T14:32:20.000Z
modified: 2026-10-31T13:16:05.409Z
image: https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/bltea7aee2fca050a19/bltf8b3827decbe0025/69fdfaf5428cebccacceb116/menu_tracker_0508.png?width=1280&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale
---

# Menu Tracker: New items from Popeyes, Jimmy John’s, and Dutch Bros

**TL;DR:** Bret Thorn, food and beverage editor at Nation's Restaurant News, has written about new menu items from Popeyes, Jimmy John's, and Dutch Bros. Thorn has a background in writing about food and beverage trends, French cuisine, and Asian cuisine.

*By Bret Thorn, originally published in Nation's Restaurant News on 2026-05-08. [Read the original](https://www.nrn.com/food-trends/menu-tracker-new-items-from-popeyes-jimmy-john-s-and-dutch-bros).*

## Story

He is the co-host of a podcast, Menu Talk with Pat and Bret, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

## Entities

- QSR (sector)
- Nation's Restaurant News (publication)
- Popeyes (company)
- Jimmy John's (company)
- Dutch Bros (company)
- qsr trends (topic)
- menu trends (topic)
- food innovation (topic)
- Bret Thorn (person)
- Tufts University (company)
- Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine (company)

---
Originally reported by Bret Thorn, Nation's Restaurant News (https://www.nrn.com/food-trends/menu-tracker-new-items-from-popeyes-jimmy-john-s-and-dutch-bros). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/50601f76-d5d9-4042-8f64-a793be45b48a).