Menu development

As an Italian-American kid growing up in New Jersey, Anthony Amoroso, spent many Sundays at his grandmother’s house eating homemade Italian meals like meatballs and spaghetti. He brought this cultural legacy with him to Maggiano’s, where he is now vice president of innovation and growth.

“I have great affinity for this food. A great love for this food,” said Amoroso, who also has experience working at MGM Resorts International as executive chef in addition to various other restaurants. 

In the first 90 days on the job, he learned how all 50 of Maggiano’s company-owned restaurants operate across more than 20 states. This was one of his biggest challenges, since his past experience included working at one location. 

But Amoroso said managing hospitality across a chain is similar to managing it at a single restaurant, since “good food wins,” he said. He has also focused on getting to know the people who work at the corporate office and inside restaurants. 

“I can’t say it’s been a dull moment since I’ve been in the door,” Amoroso said. 

Amoroso hit the ground running with a menu revamp.

Maggiano’s menu innovation took into account past favorites that had been taken off the menu. Amaroso said his team took the recipes and elevated them with different ingredients. That meant buying 24-month aged Parmigiano Reggiano instead of cheese aged half that time, he said.

The team also brought back Maggiano’s Veal Parmesan and is using center-cut, bone-in veal with fresh mozzarella. Servers cut the veal table-side. 

“So [it’s] finding strategies and ways to be able to look through the entire menu, top to bottom, and elevate every ingredient we possibly can, if that’s what it calls for,” Amarsoso said. “And from there, trying to elevate dishes.”

In addition to revamping its food selections, Maggiano’s has updated its beverage menu. For example, its Old Fashioned is served in a smoke box to add more of an experience element, he said. 

Amoroso is currently working on a new dessert menu that he expects to add to the menu in late 2024 or early 2025. 

“We focus on quality over quantity. We focus on craveable and delicious items,” he said. “We focus on elements of surprise and excitement where appropriate.” 

Developing new dishes

Amoroso said his team has reviewed customer feedback, sales data and other information, such as feedback from servers, to figure out what guests want.

“When we're out in the field and we're with the operators at the restaurants all the way to the servers and cooks, they're telling us what guests are asking for,” Amoroso said. 

Maggiano’s has a test kitchen at the Brinker corporate office in Dallas where three chefs continually refine and test recipes. That includes looking at more than 20 different types of chicken products and evaluating them using different metrics to figure out which one is the best to use in a dish they want to develop, Amoroso said. 

The restaurant brand benefits from having a chef in every restaurant, Amoroso said, which not all of its competitors tend to have, especially if they are bigger systems. 

“When we get together, we speak the same language,” Amoroso said. “It’s very easy for us to be able to work together and get ideas across the large organization.” 

While the company relies on technology to put out recipes and roll out menu items, there is no replacement for hands-on training, he said. Chefs come together and cook side-by-side, try the food and develop various reference points to make sure the dish will excel, he said. 

Early results

The cocktail innovation and master sommelier wine curation that Maggiano’s launched during Brinker’s fiscal Q1 2025 reversed a 10-year decline in alcohol sales, Brinker CEO Kevin Hochman said during an October earnings call. The Maggiano’s Old Fashioned is the chain’s number one selling cocktail, he said.

The chain’s launch of Rigatoni al la Vodka and the Maggiano’s Signature Caesar salad, which is finished tableside, have been mixing in well, Hochman said. 

In addition to developing new dishes and bringing back old ones, Maggiano’s is working on menu simplification. It is removing its $6 take home pasta offerings since preparing and packaging these meals daily requires a significant amount of prep and labor and is not a profitable business driver, Hochman said. 

The company will redeploy the time and investment it took to create these take home pastas into “elevating and accelerating the business,” he said. 

Beyond the menu

Amoroso has also reviewed the restaurant decor to see how the dining rooms could be updated. 

“We understand that everyone doesn’t have time to sit for two hours and dine,” Amoroso said. “So anything we can do that’s going to positively impact their experience — where they can get into Magginao’s [and] have that experience they want in the time they want to have it — are some of the things we work towards.” 

That may mean optimizing the dining room through changes like adding more seating, he said. Each of its restaurants have large catering and banqueting spaces that could be used to add more tables, for example.

Amoroso and his team are also looking into refreshing the restaurant decor with new lighting, floors, and different colored walls to make things a bit warmer and more inviting. Many of its 50 restaurants haven’t been refreshed in a very long time, Amoroso said.

“We have a road map to touch two-thirds of those in the next 20 months,” he said.

Papa Johns should focus on producing its core pizza products, especially since menu innovation has not driven sustainable sales growth for the brand, CEO Todd Penegor said at an investor event in December 2024.

Papa Johns saw its comparable sales fall during much of 2024, while competitor Domino’s emerged as the QSR pizza segment’s 2024 winner.

Ravi Thanawala, Papa Johns CFO, said the chain was taking a slower approach to pricing — on a two-year basis, the brand’s pricing outpaced general inflation by 6% as of the end of fiscal 2024.

In the last few years, the chain has sold items like Papadias, including a Dorito’s Cool Ranch flavor, and Papa Bowls, which are bowls of pizza toppings. While these initially helped improve quarterly performance, they took away from the pizza chain’s core products. Orders for the brand’s medium and large original crust pizzas accounted for about 75% of orders in 2019. Five years later, that has dropped to 50%, in part due to menu additions and innovations, Penegor said.

“We've brought a lot of product on. It's driven some short-term sales. It's brought in new users, but it's not driven the frequency that we need, which a core pizza can do day in and day out,” Penegor said. 

Original crust and pizza quality are the brand’s key strengths, Penegor said, and to refocus on them, the company will step back from LTOs or products that disrupt the restaurant’s rhythm.

Operational change due to menu additions sometimes “takes us away from making a great pizza,” Penegor said. 

The company plans to simplify its operations and its marketing calendar so it can focus on its core pizza products. 

“We're going to have to find the right balance and don't get me wrong, we're not moving away from innovation,” Penegor said.

The brand is also working on its value perception, which was hurt by menu price increases that outstripped inflation on a two-year basis, Thanawala said.

As its North American comps sales slid 3.6% during Q2 2024, Papa Johns began to refocus on value.

While its Q3 comps sales were still down, the brand started to see sequential traffic increases. This has given Papa Johns the impression that it has significant room for improvement.

“We think there's more share of stomach to go get,” Thanawala said. “And we know we can do it through winning in our core product proposition and layering in, at times, the right strategic innovation that drives consumer acquisition.”

To help improve customer acquisition and retention, the chain brought on Jenna Bromberg as CMO in 2024 and is making changes to its digital channels and loyalty program. 

One major change to its loyalty was to shift from a $75 spend threshold to a lower threshold, Penegor said. Now consumers who spend $15 dollars with the chain earn about $2 in Papa Dough, the brand’s rewards currency. This has helped drive the proportion of customers ordering through its loyalty program from about 20% to about 50%.

Sponsored content

By Lamb Weston

Labor shortages are an ongoing obstacle for the restaurant industry and it’s becoming increasingly important for operators and chefs to navigate these challenges to effectively run their businesses. While staffing problems were already a concern before the pandemic, the situation has worsened.¹ As of early 2024, staffing levels remained 3.6% below pre-pandemic levels, with approximately 450,000 open positions across the industry.² This not only raises concerns about whether kitchens have the necessary support to operate as usual but also affects the overall guest experience—whether they dine in, order takeout, or have food delivered.¹

Not having enough staff complicates operations for restaurant owners. In 2023, 62% of operators report difficulty in finding enough staff to meet demand, while 80% struggle to fill any open positions.³ The challenge is compounded by the need for qualified candidates; if the pool of interested applicants is already limited, filtering out those lacking the necessary experience or skills further narrows options. This creates a challenging dynamic as 45% of restaurant owners say they urgently need employees to support customer demand.⁴

Restaurant owners recognize that these labor shortages not only create obstacles for them but also lead to frustration for their diners. Customers have voiced concerns about understaffing, with 33% reporting longer wait times for food, 32% noting a diminished experience due to overstressed staff, and 17% experiencing delays when placing their orders.¹ These issues can harm customer satisfaction and loyalty, adding pressure on restaurants to maintain their good reputation and relationship with customers.

Further complicating these staffing challenges is the sharp rise in labor costs. Operators are facing wage increases of nearly 30% compared to pre-pandemic levels¹, leading to an overall labor cost increase of around 31%.⁵ Restaurant operators must navigate the difficult decision of balancing profitability with tough choices such as raising prices, cutting back hours, or managing slimmer margins.¹

How can operators and chefs address these issues to ensure the profitability and longevity of their restaurants? One strategy is to optimize menus by featuring items commonly found in the back of house (BOH) that require minimal preparation and training. Fries are a great choice. They are loved by guests, ranking as the most popular food across generations, and can be one of the most profitable items on the menu.⁶ Plus frozen fries require minimal prep time, eliminating the need to cut each potato by hand, thereby easing labor demands. Additionally, frozen fries are perceived by guests as significantly more profitable than hand-cut fries.⁷ So, with virtually no prep time and faster cook times, frozen fries enhance efficiency while boosting profits.

Another area for operators to explore is adjusting pricing or modifying menus to emphasize higher-margin items.¹ In fact, many restaurants have streamlined menus to enhance profitability and efficiency amid labor and logistics challenges. Within the last five years, permanent menu items have declined by 24%, while limited time offers (LTOs) have increased by 25%.⁸ Fries prove to be a valuable ingredient again as they can serve as a versatile base for any LTO. They can easily be loaded up with any sauce or topping commonly found BOH. The possibilities are limitless and loaded fries have a median price that is $2.81 higher than standard fry apps and sides, making them ideal higher-margin items to feature while utilizing low-cost ingredients already on hand.⁹

Lamb Weston is a valuable partner, recognizing the challenges chefs and operators are facing in the restaurant industry, which is why they offer a diverse portfolio of frozen fries that require minimal back-of-house preparation and can be seamlessly integrated into any menu. Plus, Lamb Weston® Seasoned Fries are the perfect choice for chefs looking to add a flavorful fry to the menu without any additional work. Their Seasoned fries are not only artistically influenced by a mild blend of seasoning but also a fan favorite among guests, so you can rest assured that you are delivering a flavor-packed eating experience. With two new products to choose from, the Seasoned Original Recipe Crinkle Fries or the Seasoned Seashore-Style™ Fries are sure to satisfy cravings and keep them coming back!

Contact a Lamb Weston® Fry Expert to learn more about their new Seasoned fries and how they can help combat the issues associated with labor shortages.

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¹ Mileva, G. (2024, October 2). 2024 restaurant Labor Market Insights. Push. https://www.pushoperations.com/blog/2024-restaurant-labor-market-insights 

² Jones, A. (2024, October 1). The restaurant labor shortage: How we got here and a 2023 update. OpenTable Resources. https://restaurant.opentable.com/resources/restaurant-labor-shortage/

³ Doss, M. (2023, June 13). Hungerrush data shows majority of diners believe the restaurant customer experience is declining due to the ongoing labor shortage. Business Wire. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230613421517/en/HungerRush-Data-Shows-Majority-of-Diners-Believe-the-Restaurant-Customer-Experience-is-Declining-Due-to-the-Ongoing-Labor-Shortage 

⁴ 2024 state of the restaurant industry. National Restaurant Association. (2024, February 5). https://restaurant.org/research-and-media/research/research-reports/state-of-the-industry/ 

⁵ Inflation. National Restaurant Association. (2024). https://restaurant.org/research-and-media/research/inflation/

⁶ Lamb Weston Proprietary Amplifry Study. Lamb Weston. (2023).

⁷ Amplify 2022 Datassentail. Lamb Weston. (2022).

⁸ Impact of a Recession on Foodservice. Technomic. (2022).

⁹ Datassential Menu Trends

When the leaves have turned and the highs have slipped from the summer’s hellish heights down to more reasonable temperatures, people can go into a coffee shop and buy a drink that evokes key signifiers of the holiday season: family, the comforts of home, the chill of autumn.

At Peet’s Coffee, customers can find caffeinated mocktails designed with winter flavors. The brand’s winter lineup for 2024 boasts the Derby, a mock-Irish coffee; the Bestie, which contains orange bitters, blood orange puree and chai-spiced tea; and the Tiger’s Eye, which mixes blood orange puree, cold brew, orange bitters and club soda.

Dutch Bros, meanwhile, includes a host of time-limited drinks. The 950-store coffee chain has embellished its 2024 menu with Candy Cane and Hazelnut Truffle Mochas, and a blue raspberry sweet cream version of its Rebel energy drink. It’s enough to give Scrooge visions of winters yet-to-come, complete with a caffeinated Tiny Tim buzzing beside a suitably modern pellet stove.

The evocative power of seasonal coffee drinks depends on a careful process of development, refinement and analysis. Before the first consumers taste orange puree or peppermint syrup, these ingredients have to be designed, tested, produced and distributed. Workers must be trained, marketing campaigns prepared and consumers primed before the first cup passes through the drive-thru window.

Companies like Dutch Bros, Peet’s and Westrock Coffee, which supplies many QSR and C-stores with coffee products, begin planning and testing their seasonal drinks far in advance.

Restaurant Dive spoke to these companies about the long process of planning, designing, testing and producing their seasonal coffees.

Planning and devising the flavors

Mike Mastio, Westrock’s senior vice president of technical services and research and development, said coffee companies are already looking towards flavors for 2026 and 2027. That’s because designing complex flavors is an arduous process that requires carefully balancing chemistry, nutrition, sensory elements, shelf-stability and ingredients. 

But success in a lab doesn’t necessarily translate to success in production.

“It’s longer than you might think,” Mastio said of the development process for coffee LTOs. “A lot of the work is not presented at the time and you might not even have a business case for it. There may be 100 different flavors.” 

For Kyle Newkirk, Westrock Coffee’s executive vice president of global sales and innovation, the design of a coffee LTO can begin as far as two years in advance. It starts with conversations about flavor priorities, LTO cadences and approaches to menu innovation with Westrock’s customers.

“You tend to have to have the final product of flavors and drink builds locked in as much as a year in advance of when they're actually going to launch,” Newkirk said, which leaves brands time to test and market their drinks.

Dutch Bros tries to keep its eye on trends in flavors, said Tana Davila, the brand’s chief marketing officer. The company tries to identify when flavors have reached a favorable point of adoption and uses a variety of tools to keep track of emerging ones. From conceiving of an LTO drink to deploying it typically takes around six months for Dutch Bros.

Peet’s does something similar, said Filipa Aguiar Loureiro, head of retail product marketing for the coffee company. The brand monitors flavor trends and then tries to capitalize on them with its seasonal LTOs. Peet’s marketing teams try to give its product teams about an eight-month lead time to develop drinks. This year, that meant making Mocktails.

“We see sobriety as being a big movement with younger audiences, and that's really who we're trying to connect [with] at the coffee bar,” Aguiar Loureiro said. 

Part of Peet’s intent with its unconventional holiday coffee LTOs was to expand the range of dayparts and occasions for its drinks, Aguiar Loureiro said. Sweet, hot beverages like peppermint mochas, for example, make compelling breakfast drinks, but fruity, coffee-forward drinks, including cold drinks, tap into growing consumer appetites for caffeinated drinks throughout the day.

“We wanted to bring a bit more of a different time of the day, more of an afternoon thought, a different occasion, a bit more of a sophisticated flavor,” Aguiar Loureiro said. “It's really branching out to more territories and more moments of need.”

Orange bitters and blood orange puree are the centerpieces of two of Peet’s holiday drinks, taking advantage of citrus’ associations with the holiday season. The Tiger’s Eye, a sparkling drink, is designed to capture consumer demand for refreshers, while the Bestie supplements fruit flavors with chai, a blend of warm, aromatic spices. 

“It's reminiscent of a mulled wine, or Gluehwein, a German drink. It’s very festive, like a mulled cider,” said Patrick Main, a senior manager of research and development at Peet’s. 

Testing, production and training

But identifying trends and dayparts is only one part of the battle. The flavors in complex beverages, like Peet’s layered LTOs, have to work well together, a process which depends on the density of ingredients, Main said

“We have to think a lot about the specific gravity of different ingredients. How are those going to react with each other? Where are they going to sit in the cup? How easy is it for the consumer who wants to incorporate everything into one thing? How easy is it for the customer who wants to experience different layers,” Main said. 

Most beverages are subject to complex chemical processes that impact flavor. Coffee, syrups, milks and fruit purees are all somewhat unstable, and even tap water’s chemical attributes vary by location. This, in turn, requires different formulae: packaged goods need to be shelf-stable for a period, while drinks prepared on-site need to maintain a consistently appealing texture and flavor for consumers.

Once Westrock has locked-in the basics of a flavor, or a set of flavors, Mastio said, the company enlists panels of supertasters who specialize in analyzing caffeinated drinks and can detect everything from over-roasted coffee to unpleasant, lagging creaminess. Further refinement follows before blind taste tests with general consumers. 

Once the company has settled on a flavor combination, it has to make sure the recipe can be produced at scale, Mastio said. That process requires understanding how liquids behave as they move through the production process, given the scale of some factories.

“From the time I take it out of the heat exchanger to the time I put it in a tank, it is still doing something,” Mastio said. “And when you have hundreds of yards of pipes around there that all have various temperatures, you can see that there's effects.”

Designing modular drinks is a little easier. Davila said that at Dutch Bros, flavors that work in one part of a menu category tend to work across several drinks. Syrups or additives that go with one coffee-based drink generally go well with others, while flavors from energy drinks and refreshers tend to be interchangeable across those platforms.

Dutch Bros often tests its new drinks in shops to ensure consumers like the beverages and that the production process fits in with the existing workflows in a cafe.

Operations are a key consideration at this stage for Peet’s, too, and the brand tries to strike a balance between flavor innovation and simplicity and familiarity for its workers, Aguiar Loureiro said. For simple changes, like moving from Pumpkin Spice to Holiday Lattes, those changes are minimal, since both drinks use a standard latte build and flavored syrups. To support training, the brand distributes recipe cards to stores and provides training videos for more complicated new drinks, Aguiar Loureiro said. 

Main, who started with Peet’s as a barista, said the brand’s innovation team includes many ex-hourly workers who are familiar with the layout and operations of a store, which makes it easier for the company to design new drinks and then integrate them with store operations. 

“I don't have to imagine what it is to re-create a recipe in the moment in a busy coffee bar, I've done it,” Main said. “It's very direct for me.” 

But integrating recipes with store operations requires Peet’s to get drinks to its store in advance of the launch date, with enough time to train baristas.

Marketing and preparing for launch

An LTO like Peet’s fruity coffee mocktails requires more marketing muscle to alert consumers than other time-limited drinks. 

The brand works through multiple channels, including PR and earned media, but with a special focus on consumer engagement through its app. These efforts include teasing the drinks, elaborating on flavor combinations and builds, and efforts to promote trial. 

But Peet’s most important marketing channel for new beverages might be its frontline workers, Aguiar Loureiro said.

“There's no bigger ambassador than a happy barista,” Aguiar Loureiro said. “We also do some active sampling within the store as the season launches to spread some awareness and get those new flavors going.”

Westrock tries to finalize its drinks as much as a year in advance to give clients the time to “do all the photo shoots and the marketing and the consumer testing that they need to do,” Newkirk said. Actual production begins about three months before product launch, Newkirk said. 

Dutch Bros has a strong presence on social media, Davila said, which makes it easy for the brand to roll out new menu items and LTOs. 

“Our guests are waiting for new stuff from us,” Davila said. “People are even sometimes looking for little hints of what's coming, and often sending in lots of thoughts and suggestions on other things they would like to see from a product standpoint.”

Measuring the success of LTOs

After all those months of design, testing and refinement, Peet’s announced its holiday mocktail drinks in October 2024 and launched them in early November, while Dutch Bros also debuted its holiday menu at around the same time. 

How do they know if the drinks were well-received?

Simple metrics provide robust answers, Davila said. 

“I definitely look at absolute velocity, units per shop, per week or per day,” Davila said. “We have a very large and robust loyalty program. So I do look at the percent of loyalty guests that try an LTO. I think that's actually a good indicator of appeal.”

Davila said Dutch’s protein coffee, which launched January 2024, was a good example of a breakthrough item. Those beverages, which have about 20 grams of protein, create something of a new menu category for the company because of its nutritional profile. The protein-heavy drinks were so successful Dutch Bros brought them onto the main menu. 

At Westrock, success is likewise easy to determine. If customers want more, or if Westrock needs to expand production, the company knows it has a good drink on its hands, Mastio said. 

“The biggest indicator is if they keep ordering,” Mastio said. 

Once Westrock knows it has a hit, Newkirk said, it’s often easy to plan for the future.

“We will just plan at that point to reschedule it for the same planning window for the following year,” Newkirk said. “Or if it didn't hit sales volume needs we'll either make tweaks to the formula or come back with another flavor.”

While Peet’s analyzes raw sales, according to an email statement sent to Restaurant Dive, the brand also looks at qualitative feedback and brand buzz, since total sales may be an imperfect measure of a drink’s deeper connection with specific consumers. 

“Even if an LTO doesn’t achieve the highest sales, we consider it a success if it leaves a lasting impression and connects with our target audience as intended,” a Peet’s spokesperson wrote.

Krispy Kreme doughnuts will be sold in nearly 2,000 McDonald’s as of the end of 2024, up from its previous estimate of 1,000 stores as of October, president and CEO Josh Charlesworth said on the company’s Q3 2024 earnings call. He reiterated the company is on track to have doughnuts available at 12,000 McDonald’s by 2026.

In the second week of November, the doughnut chain will begin delivering the treats to restaurants in Indiana and Ohio. Those states border Louisville, Kentucky, where the partnership was first tested, and Chicago, where Krispy Kreme began delivering doughnuts to about 400 stores in October. 

Pennsylvania and West Virginia followed in November, Charlesworth said, bringing the pastries to another 1,000 restaurants.

“McDonald's is supporting the launch with a comprehensive local marketing plan, including TV, social media, and out-of-home billboards,” Charlesworth said. “We expect this increased visibility to benefit Krispy Kreme brand awareness as we expand to more cities across the country.”

Most of the company’s doughnut-making facilities operate below capacity, with some making just 25% of the maximum possible volume of doughnuts, Charlesworth said. 

The accelerated rollout of the doughnuts at McDonald’s and other retailers “gives us the opportunity to improve the capital efficiency of the existing production hubs,” Charlesworth said. “We also plan to open new high-volume facilities with quicker paybacks in underserved markets like Minneapolis and Massachusetts.”

Charlesworth told analysts Krispy Kreme has not seen measurable cannibalization of its sales at existing doughnut shops in the Chicago market. He added that McDonald’s customers have responded positively to the doughnuts, which fill a hole in the burger giant’s menu left by the end of its McCafe pastry lineup in 2023.

But the rapid expansion of Krispy Kreme’s delivered-fresh-daily network — meaning retailers and restaurants that sell its doughnuts, not delivery to individual consumers — is challenging the company’s logistics network. 

As a result, CFO Jeremiah Ashukian said the doughnut company is thinking about using a third party to complete some of its deliveries to retailers and restaurants. 

This would prevent Krispy Kreme from having to scale expenses like fuel or truck maintenance in conjunction with its network, Charlesworth said. Following tests of third-party logistics work, the company has put out a request for proposals from potential third-party delivery partners. 

After facing rising costs and tough economic conditions since 2022, restaurants are scrambling for customers. To entice these guests, brands from McDonald’s to Chili’s and Applebee’s rolled out value meals, combos and buy-one-get-one offers to draw people in the door in Q2 and Q3 2024.

Even independent restaurants have participated in the value promotions, adding 3,250 combo menu items during the summer, with new combo additions peaking between July 28 through Aug. 10, 2024, according to SpotOn data emailed to Restaurant Dive. Independents also added 210 BOGO items, with additions increasing by 90% from the week of Aug. 4 to the week of Aug. 11, 2024. Bottomless menu items and All You Can Eat offers were both up 30% from the week of Aug. 4 to the week of Aug. 11, 2024. 

“When the economy is good or the economy is bad, you’re seeing some version of a combo meal from chains, maybe seasonal or value-based,” said Kevin Bryla, CMO and head of consumer experience at SpotOn.

What’s happening now in the post-COVID environment is different, he said. People still want to go out and value that experience, but restaurants have raised prices dramatically in response to increased costs in recent years. Still, restaurateurs haven’t been able to pass on all inflation increases to guests, and profits are under pressure “like never before,” Bryla said. 

“I don’t think that brands coming out with BOGO offers or value menus are actually changing the nature of guests. It’s the guests that are really changing the nature of the restaurant,” said Joe Yetter, general manager at Par Technology. 

Price increases are driving average check size for the typical brand, Yetter said, but just about every brand is struggling with same-store traffic. 

“The economy, the guests are affecting the brands and the brands are responding with more value,” Yetter said. 

Guests that are most price sensitive are gravitating toward value promotions, Yetter said.

In addition, consumers are increasingly buying down the menu, meaning that someone who might have bought a steak one day is buying a burger the next day, since that is what they can afford, Bryla said. People still want to go out to eat, but have finite resources.

“Restaurants have been seeing that and feeling that and trying to come up with a lot of creative ways to get folks to stay loyal,” Bryla said. “It’s a battle out there.”

While many chains offered discounted meal deals, buy-one-get-one burgers were one of the most popular offerings among customers, according to a Revenue Management Solutions survey of 860 participants conducted in June. Thirteen percent of surveyed consumers said they were most likely to buy a BOGO burger, compared to 8% who would opt for value meals. However, families with incomes below $50,000 much preferred a burger and nugget meal, priced at $5, versus the overall population.

What drives successful value offerings

Creating value menus is just one step in enticing consumers back — creating engaging ads to get them in the door is another. 

“While people may have a plan around how often they eat out, it’s often up in the air where they’re going to eat out,” said Laura Grover, SVP and head of client solutions at Edo Inc., which measures advertising outcomes.. “So you do have to be top of mind. … It really is essential to be able to break through the clutter, resonate with consumers and spark them to want to eat out with you,” Grover said. 

Edo collects advertising campaigns across various platforms, including streaming, and measures engagement in terms of searches and clicks on client sites using Google Trends API. 

Applebee’s All You Can Eat campaign has been one of the most successful per Edo’s findings, beating the casual restaurant category average by 45%, and Chili’s 3 for Me deal outperformed the average by 35%. That means individuals exposed to the ads were more likely to search for these brands, Grover explained.

While the Chili’s 3 for Me isn’t new and has been available for sometime, it has “continuously been a strong performer,” Grover said. 

The pizza category has approached recent promotions differently, however, since value has always been part of the category. Instead, pizza ads tend to focus more strongly on the food and product innovation, Grover said. 

“If you go to any of their websites, there is always some type of deal, and I do feel like that's ingrained in people's minds,” Grover said. “New products jump out a little bit more because consumers know that they can get that good deal.”

Pizza Hut launched its Tavern Pizza campaign earlier in 2024, which was centered on a thin crust style of pizza popular in Chicago. That campaign was one of the strongest pizza ads Edo has seen so far in 2024, Grover said.

Other items that have performed well include somewhat more premium ingredients, like shrimp dishes at Long John Silver’s and Panda Express. 

“It’s almost a splurge [since] … seafood tends to be a little bit more expensive,” Grover said. “This is making it attainable and it’s that treat that maybe you can’t afford as frequently right now.” 

Value doesn’t just mean price

Customers liked getting free items and much preferred offers of free chicken nuggets with purchase and one entree, two sides and drink promotions, an RMS June 2024 survey revealed. Highest spenders opted for high promotions that offered quantities for the price, as they often shared meals or spread that meal over many days.

Family dining and full-service concepts like Texas Roadhouse aren’t resorting to discounts like BOGOs, because they already deliver strong value for money, and have ended up taking traffic from their competitors and are driving new traffic, Yetter said, because of their all-round value perception. The traffic that these concepts are driving is often a result of a special occasion, like birthday, date night or taking the family out for a nice dinner, rather than the high frequency cheaper QSRs are aiming for. 

Unlimited offerings like Olive Garden’s Never Ending Pasta and Unlimited breadsticks are also more about value in quantity versus price point, Grover said, adding that Never Ending Pasta and unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks perform above average for Olive Garden ads, with Never Ending Pasta leading to stronger engagement. 

“Having a strong proposition that means high quality food for fair prices can also be a huge value component,” Yetter said. “You can still say the value for money that Texas Roadhouse is delivering is similar to the same type of value or value for money that someone like McDonald's or a QSR brand is driving. It’s just in a different segment of the consumer. It’s just … a different occasion.”

The impact of value on restaurants

Operators also need to make sure that they are using the right ingredients at the right price to not just create value for customers, but also maintain profitability, Bryla said. 

In the past few years, operators have evaluated the price of certain ingredients weekly instead of monthly or quarterly. With food prices ebbing and flowing, restaurants have to be more strategic and create offers with ingredients when they are lower priced. 

Crabby Daddy’s in Missouri is a great example of this, Bryla said. The owner found a way to get crabs at a very low cost, allowing it to provide an All You Can Eat Crab offer. This added value for consumers while still turning a profit for the restaurant, Bryla said. 

“It is so critical to understand your menu, understand your inventory costs and understand your profitability,” Bryla said. “Restaurants have always struggled with the fact that they love delighting customers and they love putting good offers out there, but if the restaurant’s not profitable, it’s not going to be there to give those great offers and that great guest experience six months from now, or a year from now.”  

Many of the value offerings promoted during the summer were limited-time offerings, a strategy that Bryla said is key to pricing. 

“It’s essential that they’re limited time because otherwise you just reset the expectation of … pricing lower and you can’t bring your price back up again,” Bryla said. “So the limited-time offer gets people in the door and gets them in the habit.” 

The highest-value customer is the loyal one who keeps coming back, he said. 

“What makes or breaks restaurants is loyal, repeat customers. I think these offers, when well thought through, are a nice part of the mix,” Bryla said. 

How value is driving traffic

While offers in the early summer of 2024 did result in subsequent traffic boosts at chains like McDonald’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chili’s and Starbucks, brands shouldn’t rush value promotions out the door.

Every brand should test a value deal or meal to see if it drives incrementality, Yetter said. That could mean testing in specific locations or markets to see if these items yield new visits, add new spend or are eating away their existing customer spend and just trading down to the value offer. 

Brands should also have an understanding of the longevity of these consumers, Yetter said. They need to determine if value deals are just driving trials or are actually impacting traffic during specific periods compared to other busy periods.

Not every deal is meant to drive incremental sales and could just be encouraging add-ons. For example, a QSR could provide a steep discount on a dessert item or chicken nuggets that would drive customers in the door and then buy more off the menu. 

Bryla said he expects restaurants to offer more value promotions, especially if they are really compelling to guests. 

Beyond just getting people in the door with these offers, restaurants also need to ensure that customers have a good experience that will help them become repeat customers. 

“If you just rely on the offer and don’t have all those surrounding strategies, it’s going to be tough,” Bryla said.

In Q2 2024, McDonald’s broke a four-year streak, when its U.S. same-store sales dipped 0.7%. Traffic declines pushed the chain to emphasize its value proposition, so it extended a limited-time $5 Meal Deal into December. The promotion, which launched June 25, 2024, was originally expected to lapse at the end of the summer. 

McDonald’s, like other fast food chains, is grappling with negative price perception as the growth of food-away-from-home prices continues to outpace that of grocery prices. Several QSRs rolled out permanent and temporary value meals during the summer to improve diner sentiment and drive traffic. 

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said during the chain’s Q2 2024 call that it needed a national value platform. Analyst BTIG said in a July report that Kempczinski’s statement may suggest the $5 Meal Deal LTO could be too narrow to attract significant guest counts. Even once a core value menu is added, it could take months of advertising to resonate with customers, BTIG said.

Data is mixed on whether or not McDonald’s $5 Meal Deal has been an effective means of boosting sales, traffic and customer loyalty. As of July, the meal had yet to make a significant impact on same-store sales, but the chain saw an initial traffic bump in the days following the June 25 launch.

Customer interest is high for McDonald’s deal

McDonald’s saw higher consumer interest in its value offering compared to a similar $5 promotion offered by Burger King, according to an M Science report. About 25% of McDonald’s customers ordered the $5 Meal Deal in the weeks following June 25 compared to about 10% of Burger King customers in the weeks following that chain’s June 10 $5 promotion, per M Science digital purchase data.

McDonald’s meal deal also helped bring back lapsed customers. Twelve percent of customers who purchased the meal had not been to the chain during the previous three months, per the report. Roughly 5% were new customers. 

In the weeks after the $5 Meal Deal launch, M Science found that orders with the bundle had 12% higher checkers than orders without it. The promotion has been ordered more frequently as an add-on to other items rather than as a standalone purchase.  

“We think the high percentage of ‘regulars’ among the offer's customer base might mean some customers are boosting their standard order with the promo rather than substituting the promo for existing orders,” M Science said in its report. “We think the boost to average check could be helping to support average check at a time when MCD is looking to get less aggressive on its pricing.” 

Regulars are defined as customers who have visited the chain within the previous 30 days. 

McDonald’s had particular success with “Young Urban Singles,” according to a Placer.ai white paper emailed to Restaurant Dive. This demographic segment is defined as young singles starting out in careers or in trade jobs. In states with high market shares of this demographic, average visits were higher in July compared to statewide averages. 

“These young, price-conscious consumers, who are receptive to spending their discretionary income on dining out, are not the sole driver of McDonald’s LTO foot traffic success,” Placer.ai said in a recent white paper. “Still, the promotion’s outsize performance in areas where McDonald’s attracts higher-than-average shares of Young Urban Singles shows that the offering was well-tailored to meet the particular needs and preferences of this key demographic.”

Perception of value, price shifts

HundredX, a customer data and insights company, found mixed customer comments about the $5 Meal Deal, with some diners sharing that it’s a good value. A woman in the 40 to 49 age range earning less than $25,000 said she started going back to McDonald’s because of the promotion, per a report emailed to Restaurant Dive. Other customers of various demographics still found McDonald’s prices to be too high. 

HundredX’s data revealed that McDonald’s has yet to significantly move the needle on customer perception on price and value. As of August 2024, customer perception on price fell 16% year over year and continues a downward trend despite evening out during the summer. Double-digit percentage declines in sentiment indicate customers are seeing prices unfavorably.

On the other hand, McDonald’s price perception decline started to slow in July compared to steeper dips in previous months, which could indicate positive perception of the $5 Meal Deal, Andre Benjamin, vice president of strategy at HundredX, wrote in an email.

Comparatively, HundredX reported a 4% decline year over year in customer price perception for the quick, fast casual segment (QFC) in August 2024. 

The net positive perception of value for McDonald’s fell 7% year over year. Perception on value for QFC declined only three points August over August, comparatively. 

“Managing prices is key for QFC companies as they struggle to regain slumping sales,” Benjamin said. “In our feedback flow, price is among the top three most selected reasons why a customer likes or dislikes a QFC brand. Clearly, price is top of mind for customers — it should be top of mind for restaurants, too.”

Chef Paul Fabre, Subway’s senior vice president of culinary and innovation, has been very busy lately. 

Fabre, who joined Subway in December 2020, has led the chain’s approach to menu strategy, innovation and all things culinary. In 2022, the chain released its Subway Series, just a year after the chain created its Eat Fresh Refresh. 

“It’s great to see the positive momentum in the brand, and so we continue to deliver that from a culinary perspective,” Fabre said. 

In 2024, his team revealed Subway Sidekicks, snackable items that were part of product collaborations with Cinnabon and Auntie Anne’s. Those products were so popular that Subway sold 3.5 million of the items in the first two weeks of launch. A few months later, the chain appended Dippers to its snack menu, adding to its growing roster of savory items. 

“This year is really about meeting our guests’ [demands] and extending our occasions … both from a menu platform, as well as from a different time of day,” Fabre said. 

Restaurant Dive spoke with Fabre about the development of Subway’s newest menu items, including the Subway Sidekicks and Dippers and how his team took account of guest and franchisee feedback. 

Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

RESTAURANT DIVE: What was the process for developing Subway’s latest menu items, especially the Subway Sidekicks? 

PAUL FABRE: Our creative process here at Subway is always guest led. Our product innovation is really about solving a complex puzzle: How do we fit all things together from consumer insights, what are the guests looking for, what are some of the culinary trends we’re seeing around us — spicy or sweet — as well as how it links to the brand from a value perspective, so that we can create familiar offerings that are both craveable and exciting. 

A lot of the things that we do are highly collaborative. So we use a lot of our internal partners. Our franchisees and our field teams give us a lot of good tips and help with testing. Our suppliers help as well. We really believe that all great ideas come from anybody, but we use a very enhanced process to ensure that the guest is our North Star for whatever we develop. 

Can you expand the process of developing Sidekicks, as that was a partnership with outside brands? 

We worked on the Sidekicks for over 14 months, with Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon, iconic brands at GoTo Foods. They’ve been great partners in developing these craveable items. 

Sidekicks have been a great success. It’s our step into snacking, and we know that consumers are eating multiple times during the day and looking for other options outside of the typical lunch or dinner occasions.

It's truly about delivering craveable, snackable items, easy on-the-go at a great value. It also gives us the opportunity to meet the guests on different occasions besides their sandwich. A lot of snacks are consumed with a sandwich, but also in the afternoon by itself as well. 

How do you take into account consumer and franchisee feedback in your menu development? 

Whenever we develop new menu items, we would test them in various markets around the United States to see the success of them. We really lean heavily on feedback from our operators, our franchisees, but also our sandwich artists to see if those items are easy to execute. And we gather feedback from consumers as well. From our franchisees we saw high engagement and love for those new products, and that really helps the success of those. It’s always highly collaborative. As we roll new items, we want to ensure that our franchisees are fully behind them.

What was the thinking behind some of the newest sandwich flavors, such as summer of 2024’s Honey Mustard Barbecue Chicken and Spicy Nacho Chicken? 

We looked at bolder, forward-leaning flavors on these items. They’re cheesier, sweet, crunchy and spicy. Those new flavors really deliver a different experience on a sandwich. Our team introduced two new sauces, and we also could leverage all the sauces that we have upgraded over the last few years. 

We’re particularly proud of the introduction of SubKrunch. It’s really the first in the category that develops a crunch to the sandwich. At Subway, we don’t have fryers, but we know that guests love crunchy and crispy items. So we asked: ‘How can we deliver a crispy or a crunchy item on a sandwich?’ This item is a corn crisp with umami flavoring that guests can add to their favorite sandwiches, but also order on the standard Garlic Steak or the Nacho Chicken sandwiches and really have a crispy experience. So it's really about driving bolder, more flavor-forward sandwiches.

How long were those sandwiches in development before you launched them?

It typically takes us anywhere from eight months to a year for sandwiches. We are very lucky at Subway that we have great flavors and great ingredients already in our restaurant. 

From a culinary perspective, we like to leverage the ingredients we have already. If you look at the Honey Barbecue Chicken, we brought in a barbecue sauce. We already had a new honey mustard sauce. We have our chicken. 

Why did you focus on a snacking menu? And why add the Dippers? 

Dippers were really part of our long-term snacking strategy. The previous snacks and Sidekicks were more on the sweet side. So this is really savory. It’s a great value — $3. They’re highly craveable. They’re easy on the go. They’re great for kids. They're a foot long. 

But also, it really leverages all of our sauces. We have 12 great sauces at Subway. Guests can choose their sandwich, their favorite sauce. There's a lot of mixing of sauces that goes on with our guests. Now you can have a Spicy Pepperoni Dipper with your favorite ranch; it's all about finding the right dip. So it's really kind of meeting two different trends at the same time: Snacking at a value and dipping as well.

We’re just lucky with all the high quality ingredients we have. The lavash was introduced earlier [in 2024] with new signature wraps. So we leveraged the new lavash bread. It’s pillowy, it's soft.

What can we expect in terms of menu development going forward at Subway?

We’re always looking to see what the next thing will be. I think we have great options for our guests. We have something for everybody, at every budget. Our team is very committed to innovating and ensuring that we have even more flavor on our menu.

Cracker Barrel launched its largest menu test in the brand’s history in June at 14 locations in Texas, the company said in a press release. The test includes about 20 new items and a redesign of the restaurant’s menu to make it easier for guests to navigate and to reduce complexities of recipes for staff, the company said. 

The menu test is part of the company’s larger transformation plan, announced in May, that includes refining its brand, improving the store and guest experience, bolstering digital and off-premise business and improving the employee experience.

Cracker Barrel’s fiscal third quarter 2024 traffic, which was weaker than expected, “underscores the need for our strategic transformation,” CEO Julie Felss Masino said during a May earnings call. Masino added that traffic is down 20% compared to 2019. CFO Craig Pommells said traffic was down by 4.9% during the third quarter 2024, specifically. 

As part of Cracker Barrel’s research into its transformation, the chain talked to guests across the country from all backgrounds, as well as its team members to figure out what needed to change to improve the overall experience.

“We heard from them that the experience in Cracker Barrel just isn’t relevant specifically at dinner,” Masino said. 

Dinner sales, which make up about 35% of the sales mix, were down during the quarter.

“We’ve held up quite well at breakfast,” Masino said. “But what guests have told us is that [compared to] the Cracker Barrel experience, there are more relevant choices for them in the dinner daypart based on the experiential factors.”

Daily Specials will be included as part of the menu tests, giving guests specific meals only on certain nights of the week. Those items include Lemon Pepper Trout n’ classic Turnip Greens, Southern BBQ Ribs and Chicken n’ Rice. Other menu items offered daily include Hashbrown Casserole Shepherd’s Pie, Green Chile Cornbread, Chicken n’ Dumplin soup and Cinnamon Bread French Toast. A new dessert of banana pudding will also be part of the test. 

The company will monitor sales performance, gather guest and employee feedback and review how efficiently its back-of-house staff handle preparation of the new dishes, Cracker Barrel said in an email to Restaurant Dive. The chain decide to focus its test in Texas since the state’s diverse population encompasses a broad spectrum of tastes. Texas also is a big market for the chain with many well-established locations. 

“As we seek to balance menu innovation and simplification, we will take a strategic approach to rolling these items out to the full system over time,” Cracker Barrel said. “We saw success with early iterations of the test, so we plan to introduce several of these items to the full system this fall including savory Chicken and Rice, Pot Roast and Hashbrown Casserole Shepherd’s Pie, a new take on the guest favorite Hashbrown Casserole. We believe these dishes, in particular, resonate well with guests’ seasonal preferences and speak to the type of flavors they’re craving in the fall.”

Prices for these new items range from $3.99 for its Green Chile Cornbread to $17.99 for its Southern BBQ Ribs, which will be served Saturdays as a daily special, the company said.

In addition to menu changes, the company is looking at design elements, like tables, lighting, and paint, to improve the look and feel of the dining rooms, so that they feel “lighter, brighter, fresher, cleaner … place where I do want to have dinner,” Masino said. The company, which continues to test new prototypes, plans to complete 25 to 30 remodels in fiscal year 2025 that incorporate these elements. 

Other chains, including Dave & Buster’s, Noodles & Company and Panera, have been overhauling their menus this year as the industry struggles slipping traffic. Menu additions can prove successful drivers of sales as seen at Subway, which added a snack category in January. Within two weeks of its Sidekicks launch, Subway sold 3.5 million of these items and about 30 million in the six months after launch.