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QSRs boost breakfast offeringsQSRs boost breakfast offerings

Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, others add new menu items

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

March 3, 2014

2 Min Read
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Taco Bell’s announcement last week that it would roll out breakfast to most of its 5,800 domestic restaurants has increased competition among quick-service restaurants in the morning daypart, and a number of chains that already serve breakfast are boosting their offerings.

Starbucks has added three new items to its line of breakfast sandwiches. The slow-roasted Ham & Swiss sandwich features those items and an egg on a croissant bun. The Vegetable, Egg & Fontiago on Multigrain Ciabatta is a vegetarian option made with spinach, sundried tomatoes and caramelized onions with melted aged Fontiago cheese. The Egg & Cheddar on Toast is served on multigrain bread.

The chain, which operates more than 11,000 units nationwide, has also has revamped its turkey bacon, cheddar and egg white sandwich. The item, made with cage-free eggs, is now served on a thinner, organic wheat English muffin. Prices vary by location.

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Those moves follow the introduction earlier this year by 685-unit Einstein Bros. of the Thintastic bagel, a skinnier item with 35 percent fewer calories than its regular bagel. It’s available in plain, whole wheat and everything varieties.

Starbucks’ new items join its existing lineup that includes sausage, egg and aged Cheddar on a toasted English muffin; bacon, Parmesan frittata and aged Gouda cheese on an artisanal roll; ham, Cheddar cheese and Parmesan frittata on an artisan roll; and a whole-wheat wrap stuffed with cage-free egg whites, spinach, Feta cheese and tomatoes.

Starbucks last year credited its food offerings with contributing 2 percentage points to its eight-percent growth in same-store sales for its domestic locations in its fourth quarter.

Dunkin’ Donuts has also added a new sandwich to its breakfast menu at its more than 7,300 domestic locations. The Eggs Benedict sandwich is made with Black Forest ham, egg and a Hollandaise-flavored spread on an English muffin.

Jack in the Box also introduced a new breakfast item at the beginning of the year: An Egg White & Turkey Breakfast Sandwich made with egg whites, grilled turkey, sliced tomato and American cheese on its classic bun. At the same time, the chain made egg whites available at all of its 2,250 domestic units.

In October, sister chains Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s introduced a new sandwich on its signature made-from-scratch biscuit. It contains three maple sausage links, a slice of American cheese and an egg. There are a total of 3,373 Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s locations.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality.

Hi is responsible for spotting and reporting on F&B trends across the country for both publications. 

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.

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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