Chipotle Brings Back $6 Margaritas for a Five-City October Tour
Five restaurants get two-day pop-ups ahead of Halloween, starting in Denver on October 2.
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Popeyes Turns a Fan Combo Into a $5 Honey Chicken Biscuit
The new sandwich puts familiar ingredients into an all-day offer, with local prices varying.
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Dunkin’, Wendy’s and Papa Johns Are Headed to One Circle K Travel Center
Briad plans a fall opening in Binghamton, New York, pairing two restaurant drive-thrus with convenience retail and fuel. The project offers a closer look at how restaurant growth can share a single property.
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Papa Johns Puts Seven Toppings Behind a Value Price as North America Sales Remain Under Pressure
The Works starts at $10.99 for a medium and $13.99 for a large for a limited time. The notable choice is what Papa Johns is discounting: not a stripped-down entry pizza, but a seven-topping specialty item.
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7 Brew’s Sixth Wichita Stand Is Set to Open September 28 on West 21st Street
Managing partner Connor Johnson gave the opening date directly to local restaurant reporter Denise Neil. The official 7 Brew locator confirms the address at 10221 West 21st Street and still marks the stand Coming Soon ahead of the opening.
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McDonald’s Is Tying Its AI Rollout to a Hard Restaurant-Economics Target
ArchIQ is not being pitched as a tech demo. McDonald’s says Restaurant > NEXT, including GenAI-enabled ArchIQ, is designed to unlock about 250 basis points of gross restaurant-level efficiency—and roughly $100,000 in annual cash-flow benefit for the average U.S. restaurant.
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Scooter’s Coffee Moved Its Digital Ordering to Olo in Under 90 Days
The migration is an operations story disguised as a technology story: Olo says it loaded 900-plus Scooter’s locations for delivery in June, preserved the brand’s original marketplace launch date, then completed the mobile-app migration in September.
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Starbucks Is Closing About 250 North America Coffeehouses—and Reinvesting in the Rest
The closures are only one side of the turnaround. Starbucks is simultaneously accelerating coffeehouse upgrades, turning its portfolio review into a capital-allocation test: close locations that cannot meet the brand or financial standard, then spend harder on the stores that remain.
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Dunkin’ and L.L.Bean Turn New England Identity Into a National Coffee Day Collab
Dunkin’ and L.L.Bean are launching their first collaboration September 29 with a Birdseye Sweater, co-branded Boat and Tote, limited Coffee Tote and a Dunkin’ Rewards coffee offer. The partnership packages two New England identities into one national marketing moment.
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Yard House reaches $1 billion as Darden prepares more openings
The brand’s trailing-year milestone comes with a plan for 13 openings, including conversions and a less expensive restaurant prototype.
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Smoothie King Turns a Free Protein Coffee Smoothie Into a Loyalty Play
Smoothie King is giving Healthy Rewards members a free protein coffee smoothie September 28 and 29. The giveaway puts a loyalty gate around a timely coffee occasion while pushing the chain deeper into functional beverages.
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Burger King wants an easier human option in its AI drive-thrus
Comments from its technology executive put customer choice at the center of the ordering experiment.
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