Nancy says …
I’ve made my list and checked it twice, Peter. I’ve even set the chestnuts to roasting on an open fire—or at least I’ve chucked them in my microwave. You know what that means: It’s time for our annual look back at the notable restaurant achievements of the past year. Thanks to the unstinting innovation of operators, my gift bag is full to overflowing, and all that remains is for the gifts to be distributed. So let’s get to it.
For the comfort cravers on my list, I’ve gift-wrapped some creatively reimagined staples. You may recall that during the 2020 shutdown, supermarket sales of canned meats in general and Spam in particular jumped 70%, thanks to their shelf-stable affordability. This sparked a similar foodservice revival, and in summer of 2021, Pennsylvania-based Rutter’s chain of convenience stores promoted a whole line of Spam-based specialties including bowls and burgers, breakfast sandwiches and a warm Spam-and-Cheese Pretzel Roll Sandwich.
As we moved through 2022, the once-maligned protein has become one of the unlikely Cinderella ingredients of the year. At The Garage at Victory North, a spiffy space in Savannah, Ga., the bartender, also known as the Spam Master, concocts Savory Sippers made with dehydrated Spam and potlikker from collard greens, which add a distinctly Southern dimension to her martinis. And at The Apostle, a brand-new supper club in St. Paul, Minn., bar bites include Spam Fried Tacos on wonton shells with chile äioli.
The brand is also getting a big boost from the growth of Hawaiian cuisine, where it has a long and venerable history. The bill of fare at 30-unit Hawaiian Bros offers popular Spam Musubi, a cousin of sushi, in which rice and Spam glazed in teriyaki sauce are wrapped in dried seaweed. At the other end of the menu spectrum, upscale independent ‘aina in San Francisco has a sophisticated tasting menu that includes Saimin, a traditional noodle dish made here with nori, char siu pork, confit pork tongue and smoked Spam.
And as an indicator of its new-found cachet, Spam has inspired a plant-based version: Pokeworks has been testing Omni Musubi, avariation on its Garlic Spam Musubi made with plant-based pork luncheon meat.
For aficionados of the "Godfather" movies, I have a veritable abbondanza of newly introduced items, which may signal that operators are about cacio-e-pepe'd out. The wildly trendy Roman trattoria classic has had a great menu run based on its simple, toothsome combo of cheese and pepper and boosted by a strong social-media tailwind. It’s not going to disappear, but it may get a serious challenge from the red-sauce renaissance that includes newly launched limited-time offers like Burger King’s Italian Royal Crispy Chicken Sandwich with melted mozzarella and marinara sauce, and Wendy’s Italian Mozzarella Chicken Sandwich or Cheeseburger with fried mozzarella, savory red sauce and Asiago cheese on a toasted garlic-knot bun. At Tender Greens, the DiStefano Mozz Sandwich pairs the eponymous cheese with preserved tomatoes.
Velvet Taco, an excellent menu bellwether, offered an Italian Pizza Taco as a WTF (Weekly Taco Feature) earlier this month. The item put all the traditional fixings like Italian sausage, pepperoni and mozzarella in a flour tortilla.
And then there’s lasagna, a hearty, old-fashioned favorite that has become the object of R&D whimsy. Lloyd’s Restaurant and Lounge in Chicago, a self-described pizza-and-booze joint, cooks up Lasagna Fries, an appetizer topped with Bolognese, mozzarella, ricotta and both red and white sauces. Newly opened Morty’s Meat and Supply in suburban Atlanta promises BBQ Lasagna as a Wednesday-night special. And on the supermarket side, a shout-out to Stouffer’s, which has translated its classic, best-selling frozen lasagna into a Lasagna Bloody Mary Mix.
My pun-loving giftees will find their stockings stuffed with some creative restaurant names guaranteed to elicit a grin and a groan, like Hummucidal in Troy, N.Y., which dishes up Middle-Eastern specialties with the slightly ominous tagline “drop dead delicious.” Imbibers will receive Chicago’s Beermiscuous, which positions itself as a “coffee shop for beer” and sounds just like your cup of tea.
My personal favorite comes courtesy of Fox Restaurant Concepts’ new Nashville bar, Pushing Daisies, which is an amusing, multilingual play on words. Located underneath two of Fox’s full-service restaurants, the subterranean space pours fun variations on the margarita, including a whole punch bowl of the stuff. The pun? Margarita is the Spanish word for daisy. Think about it.
For the man who has everything, I’ll gift wrap a couple of the seriously zany promos of the past year, starting with Arby’s collaboration with Old Spice. To combat the dreaded meat sweats, patrons could snag a Meat Sweat Defense Kit that included Arby’s branded merch like sweatpants and a sweatband and two cans of Old Spice antiperspirant. I didn’t know meat sweats were a thing, but speaking on behalf of all womankind, I’d buy just about anything the latter brand’s studly, stallion-riding spokesman was selling.
Then there was truly original and totally startling offer from the appropriately named Daddy’s Dogs in Nashville. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer, the operation promised a free milkshake to customers who showed proof of a vasectomy. BTW, the program was dubbed the Snip for Shake Deal, and I’ll let you digest this last as I turn my attention to those tough-to-buy-for women on my list.
For starters, the master ice cream makers at Salt & Straw in Portland, Ore., designed edible perfumes to spritz on their frozen treats. The perfumes promised to engage one’s nose in the dessert experience, which has long been a personal goal of mine.
Speaking of noses, I was quite taken with the self-care potential of the Oscar Meyer-branded moisturizing face masks. So were legions of other women, apparently, as the product sold out in record time on Amazon last winter. One fearless guinea pig, no pun intended, a writer for the Eater newsletter, reported that, to her great relief, the product had a lovely floral scent. She was, however, a little put off by the fleshy, pinkish color that was a bit too reminiscent of her school lunch box.
Looks like I’ve reached the bottom of my gift bag, Peter. No, wait, here’s one last present, and it has your name on it! I was so inspired by your terrific story on pickles and pickle-flavored foods, that I ran to my local Subway to get you a foot-long Great Pickle Cookie, part of a pop-up promotion in Miami on National Cookie Day on Dec. 4.
It mimicked the #8 Garlic Sub, with layers of peanut butter and marshmallow on top of a vanilla cookie crowned with potato chips, bacon crumbles and, yes, the chain’s signature dill pickles. I hope you’ll accept it as a Sweet & Sour token of my good wishes and a happy harbinger of our continuing collaboration.
Peter says ...
Wait until my former dormmates from college get ahold of your observations. We wolfed down anything even suspected of being edible back in those days, spurred on by our devotion to finding the best appetite enhancers ever to come out of Mexico or Jamaica. We attributed the abundance of Spam in the mix to being broke, knuckleheaded and wracked with the munchies. Never did we contemplate that we were actually the far-forward edge of a food trend that wouldn’t hit the sensible world for umpteen more decades.
But it’s logical for Spam to make a comeback during what’s proven a year of retro-eating. Look at some of the other items that landed valuable real estate on chain-restaurant menus. French toast sticks were the a.m. equivalent of chicken sandwiches for several of the big fast-food chains.
Despite your tender age, Nancy, you might remember when Burger King tried that finger-food variation nearly 30 years ago. Back then, the egg-dipped fingers were served with a maple-flavored syrup that wouldn’t drip. Maybe your parents let you try them on the way home from school.
The no-drip feature was supposed to make the sticks ideal for munching in the car. Stain-free portability apparently also figured into Wendy’s decision to add the a.m. option, which put the chain in company with Sonic, McDonald’s, Roy Rogers, Jack in the Box and of course BK.
I’ve also been struck by how many milkshake upgrades we saw in 2022. Panera Bread never offered any form of the treat, a product that requires considerable time and usually dedicated equipment to produce. Now it’s squarely in the market with what it calls Bake Shakes—over-the-top variations that sport more garnishes than a Bloody Mary.
The Strawberry Cheesecake Swirl, for instance, includes cream cheese. The Kitchen Sink is made with the bakery-café chain’s Kitchen Sink Cookies. And pretzels.
Chick-fil-A added its first new milkshake flavor in four years, called Autumn Spice. It features gingerbread-like speculoos cookies.
Arby’s tried a Salted Caramel Shake as a limited-time offer.
IHOP added its first line of shakes. By design, they’re retro in appearance, and are offered in the classic flavors of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, with an Oreo version available for the adventurous. The indulgences carry a whopping price tag of $8.99.
Lest you wonder how shake fashions will trend in 2023, consider that the Pennsylvania Dairymen’s Association intends to celebrate its 70th anniversary by showcasing an orange cream shake at their home state’s Farm Show next month. I’ll pull you away from the butter-churn exhibition to give it a try.
While we’re considering indulgences, we’re obliged to report that 2022 brought another wave of fast-growing cookie concepts. We’ve seen similar onslaughts before. Remember how the dough and chips flew when Mrs. Field’s, Famous Amos, Great American Cookies and David’s Cookies were all trying to corner that crumbly market?
This year brought rapid expansion of brands like Crumbl, Insomnia, Crave, Le Macaron, Duchess and Cookie Connection. Many look and feel more like boutiques than bakeries. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were in a jewelry store. The emphasis is on getting boxes of cookies as gifts or a special treat for the family.
Fortunately, Subway was the only concept I know that combined the cookie and pickle trends into one abomination.
I’ll leave you with one more up-and-coming segment before I whip up a pre-dinner Spam-and-potlikker cocktail: seafood boils. There was a surge this year in the ranks of chain restaurants that specialize in boil-in-bag shellfish—brands like Boiling Crab, Crafty Crab, Angry Crab and Hook & Reel.
During a year when food costs rose at the fastest clip in 40 years, you’d expect foodservice’s priciest proteins to be shaky foundations for a concept, much less a fast-emerging new segment. But those brands all figured into our Top 500 ranking of chains by systemwide sales.
As for the holidays, Peter picked a perfect pickle present sure to please people named Nancy, but somehow Santa screwed up and delivered it to someone named Polly.
Have a great holiday, and let’s see what creativity and craziness a new year brings.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.