Bites & Sips: Just Around the Vend

Innovation is the lifeblood of menu development, with countless new items invigorating restaurant brands and energizing the industry as a whole. While many of these may not evolve into long-term trends with major-league status, they still represent valuable niche opportunities to perk up offerings and generate buzz. Each month, we’re serving up a platter of ideas that aim to create a connection with customers and deliver a promotional pop.

1Next-Gen Vend

Is the vending category in the U.S. on the brink of rediscovery? Long the butt of sitcom jokes about lousy coffee and malfunctioning machines, the segment is getting a second look from restaurant brands, TV personalities and local entrepreneurs.

A key driver of its reconsideration is Chicago-based Farmer’s Fridge, which offers fresh meals packed mostly in jars at more than 1,000 locations. The menu is right in line with current trends, with offerings like Shawarma Spiced Chickpea Wrap, Huevos Rancheros Breakfast Bowl (which touts 17 grams of protein) and La Colombe Triple Draft Latte. There are snackables like Strawberries & Cream Chia Pudding and a Mediterranean Protein Snack Box with hummus, olives, fresh mozzarella, Parmesan cheese and crackers. A rewards program on the app promotes frequency and loyalty, and a recent traffic-building cross-promotion with California Pizza Kitchen featured the full-service brand’s Original BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad.

More recent entries in the category include White Castle’s Crave & Go kiosks targeting 1,000 locations with a combination of classics like Original Sliders and all-new options like Chicken & Cheese Sliders. Then there are Carlo’s Bakery ATMs, created by Buddy Valastro of reality TVs “Cake Boss” series, that sell favorites like Rainbow or Red Velvet Cake by the slice. And in the Twin Cities, The Donut Trap dishes up cake donuts through five vending machines on-site in the airport, shopping malls and brew pubs. Flavors like the Fruity Pebbles-topped Gay 90s and Girl Luv Beyonce, made with a dark chocolate cherry amaretto, earned the brand a slot on Thrillist’s list of best donuts.

It’s worth noting the rechristening of machines as fridges, kiosks and ATMS to distinguish them from the forlorn image of institutional vending. These new-age approaches, the ability to meet consumers where they work and live, and smart menu merchandising may afford the segment a new lease on life.

2Slow Drinks Movement

Credit: Rittenhouse Hotel

At the Rittenhouse Hotel, craft offerings like the Espresso du Monde embody the “slow drinks” movement.

In 1986, anti-fast-food activists rallied near Rome’s Spanish Steps to protest the opening of a nearby McDonald’s. The resulting Slow Foods Manifesto demanded that food be good, clean, culturally appropriate, locally grown and fair to farmers and food workers. It spawned the Slow Food Movement that is now active in 160 countries, and its annual confabs, notably Salone del Gusto in Torino, Italy, promote the organization’s goals.

Inspired by the group’s activities, Danny Childs, a New Jersey-based farmer, chef and mixologist, created a beverage counterpart that champions garden-to-glass cocktails. His James Beard Award-winning volume Slow Drinks led to collaborations at several high-profile bars, including the W Philadelphia Hotel and the historical Rittenhouse Hotel, also in Philadelphia.

The cocktail menu at the latter includes creative quaffs like Old Jalisco Chai, a liquid global mash-up made with tequila, chai Demerara and bitters; Espresso du Monde, with cognac, chicory coffee syrup, China-China Amer (a bittersweet orange liqueur) and fresh-pulled espresso; and Tazerac, an update on the New Orleans classic with gin, tarragon syrup, grapefruit bitters and an absinthe rinse.

While neither the food nor the beverage movement has gained traction in the broader U.S. market, the emphasis on seasonal, local and clean ingredients and culinary craftsmanship will appeal especially to Gen Z and may offer a window of opportunity to bar operators.

3Nibbles & Bits

Credit: Krispy Kreme

Krispy Kreme embraces an iconic summer flavor with its limited-time Orange Dreamsicle Glazed Doughnuts.

Summer wouldn’t be summer without the appearance of variations on the Dreamsicle, the refreshing combo of vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet that started life as an original Good Humor ice cream bar and has launched countless imitators in its 100-year history. Among this season’s entries are McDonald’s Orange Dream with a base of Hi-C Orange Lavaburst, Burger King’s Orange Dreamsicle Freezee King and Carvel’s Orange Shake that blends Fanta Orange Soda with soft serve. Krispy Kreme claimed to make sunshine sweeter with limited-time Orange Dreamsicle Original Glazed Doughnuts, while Chicago-based Pretty Cool keeps it chill with creative ice cream bars like the fun Dreamsicle, featuring cream cheese ice cream in an orange shell with crunchy sprinkles.

The summer solstice also heralds the arrival of a favorite cocktail refresher: the orange-hued Aperol Spritz, an Italian import that conjures images of sophisticated sips under beach umbrellas. This season, however, trend watchers have hailed the arrival of the Hugo Spritz, a similarly fizzy variation that substitutes elderflower liqueur for Aperol. The rapid rise in popularity of this bitter-for-sweet trade-off has been deemed “stratospheric,” and a chain first-mover to address the trend is California Pizza Kitchen, where the spring menu introduced a Hugo Spritz that combines St-Germain elderflower liqueur with La Marca prosecco, mint and lime. Meanwhile, in-the-know imbibers are watching the summer horizon for another effervescent import: the Sarti Spritz. Yelp searches have jumped 8,500 percent for the ‘grammable, pretty-in-pink sipper made with the eponymous Italian blood orange-mango-passion fruit liqueur.

On the subject of seasonal specialties, dot cakes are this summer’s blink-and-you-miss-it viral food phenom that have consumers lining up for cupcakes topped with nonpareils—those tiny, crunchy, multi-colored sugar spheres that were bakery staples in 1950s kitchens everywhere. While naysayers protest that the cakes are nothing new or interesting, hopefuls line up for hours at The Dot Cakes, a Long Island, N.Y., bakery that started the craze, and reportedly weep in anguish if they fail to score. Crumbl has struck while the fad is hot with a chilled Dot Cake Cookie, a cakey, vanilla sugar cookie swirled with vanilla cream cheese frosting and fully dipped in rainbow dot sprinkles for a satisfying, summery crunch.