βurgerβusiness

Continuing its unusual openness about test-market menu items, McDonald’s today announced via Twitter that it is testing yet another new chicken item. Called Fresh Garden Wraps, the full-size tortilla wraps are in Orlando, Fla., stores, priced at $3.49 alone or $5.59 in combo meals. Fresh Garden Wraps, nearly identical in name and similar in style [...]

McDonald’s is one of the most innovative menu developers in the QSR field, but it doesn’t like to mess with success, i.e. classic core items like the Big Mac. That’s why it’s surprising to see a new, crispier version of Chicken McNuggets called Chicken McBites show up in Australia and New Zealand. New dipping sauces [...]

A generation ago, farm life was considered about as uncool as life got. Now upscale restaurants list the names of the farms where the pork or potatoes or cheese comes from. Farms are hip. You can’t keep ’em down on Wall Street after they’ve dined at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. And Bob Evans is [...]

The Japanese don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but while you’re enjoying the turkey you ordered, Japanese families are placing their orders for a new holiday food: the NY Pizza Burger and all the trimmings. Looking to make a splash in Japan, which it re-entered only three years ago, Burger King is offering the BK Party Set, a [...]

McDonald’s this week has escalated the burger battle in Europe with a bold one-two-three menu punch that competitors will be hard-pressed to match. In France, the chain’s “World Tour” promotion simultaneously adds three innovative new platforms: ● There’s a bit of cumin added to the ground beef and a slightly spicy sauce that give the [...]

Burger 21, which opened this week in Tampa, Fla., might cause burger purists’ eyebrows to arch with skepticism because of its lineage. Yes, it was created and is owned by fondue-menu casual-dining chain The Melting Pot. But hang on because this is a burger joint whose menu looks to do burgers proud. It has ambition [...]

Reporting negative sales for the third quarter, Wendy’s/Arby’s Group put on a smile and bravely looked to the future in today’s quarterly analyst call. That future will include more premium-price products and selective price increases. It also finally will include the much-anticipated introduction of breakfast in 2011′s second half. The Q3 numbers were stark. Wendy’s [...]

Wendy’s national introduction this week of Natural-Cut Fries while also beginning a tryout for the Dave’s Hot ‘n Juicy cheeseburger line in Las Vegas exemplify the heightened importance of menu development for top quick-service chains. New menu items bring in customers willing to try them at least once, and in an economy this shaky, every [...]

Burger King proclaimed its new breakfast menu a success even as it outlined depressed sales during the past quarter. For the three months ended Sept. 30, 2010, Burger King comparable sales in the U.S. and Canada dropped 4.2%, pulling down its global numbers. In EMEA/APAC (Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific), Burger King [...]

McDonald’s Egg McMuffin was created in 1972 by a California franchisee, Herb Peterson. Burgerville hopes its new breakfast burrito has the same success and longevity. Developed at the urging of Senen Garcia, a trained chef who now is general manager of Burgerville’s restaurant in Monmouth, Ore., Senen’s Breakfast Burrito is one of three limited-time options [...]

[1/28 Update: Wendy's plans to introduce the Dave's Hot 'n Juicy Cheeseburger nationally in the second half of 2011.][Update: Wendy's rolled out its Natural-Cut Fries with sea salt across the U.S. on 11/10. Details here.] Wendy’s hopes that what it’s testing in Vegas won’t just stay in Vegas. The chain this week auditions a bigger, [...]

Apparently it’s crystal-ball-prediction time and I’m already late. So I’ll give one prediction plus a few burger trend observations.  2011 will be the Year of the Stuffed Burger. Why? Because Burger King is going to show off what its new broilers can do by adding cheese-stuffed burgers early next year. Once it does, burger joints [...]

McDonald’s Corp. is again looking for someone to oversee global marketing following its surprising announcement today that Steve Easterbrook will become president of McDonald’s Europe on December 1. This follows the equally surprising resignation earlier in the week of European operations chief Denis Hennequin to become CEO of Accor Hotels Group. Little more than two [...]

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers’ new CEO says the chain has let the new breed of fast-casual competitors erode its market position and steal its customers. And he vows to reverse that perilous, passive course. Steve Carley, the former El Pollo Loco chief who took over as CEO for the struggling burger chain in September, told analysts [...]

Tom Dentice and Ed Rensi opened Tom & Eddie’s, an upscale burger joint, this summer at Yorktown mall in Lombard, Ill., outside Chicago. The menu is a bit pricier than McDonald’s— with which both men spent their working careers and from which thy retired 13 years ago (Rensi as president-CEO of McDonald’s USA and Dentice [...]