Consumer price sensitivity and intense value competition, alongside the erosion of traditional dayparts, has left many restaurant brands looking for surefire ways to get customers back in the door. This dynamic has intensified competition within the restaurant industry, said David Portalatin, Circana’s senior vice president and industry advisor for food and foodservice.
“We have more restaurants today than we had in 2019, yet we still have about 8% less traffic than we had in 2019,” Portalatin said. “We're still a very mature, structurally flat industry. We haven't discovered new population cohorts that have never eaten out before — that doesn't exist. So it is a battle for market share.”
Restaurant chains, particularly in the QSR and fast casual sectors, are looking to new menu items outside of their core offerings as a tool to make them more appealing to a wider range of consumers. Snacks, drinks and unconventional menu additions give chains a chance to create new occasions, or to take share from competitors.
Here’s how, and why, five major brands have added menu items outside their core categories in recent months.
Papa Johns’ toasted sandwiches
The fight for market share is particularly sharp in pizza, with Domino’s betting on its deep pockets and unit economics to help it muscle out smaller chains like Pizza Hut and Papa Johns.
Todd Penegor, Papa Johns’ CEO and president since 2024, has emphasized the pizza chain’s core menu as a key part of its defense strategy and has pushed the brand to sell more pies. But this hasn’t solved Papa Johns’ same-store sales issues. Customers may be ordering more pizzas, but they are ordering smaller and less premium pies as a way to constrain expenses.
In March, the chain announced it was adding Oven Toasted Subs to close the gap left by the elimination of its Papadias and Papa Bites.
Shivram Vaideeswaran, SVP of brand marketing, said at the time of the Oven Toasted Sub launch that the new subs were “a statement about where our brand is headed.”
In the first few weeks of the sandwich rollout, Papa Johns has been “encouraged by the early results we're seeing, with sandwiches driving participation across both dayparts, contributing to sales expansion and already exceeding sales of Papadias without complicating our makeline,” Penegor said on the brand’s earnings call.
Sweetgreen’s wraps
After testing wraps in 68 restaurants in Los Angeles, the Midwest and Manhattan, Sweetgreen rolled out the handheld items nationwide on May 6. The average price of the wraps is about $12.50 and all are priced under $15, according to a press release. The wraps come in at least four flavors: Classic Chicken Caesar, Chicken Jalapeño Ranch, Cali Chicken Club and KBBQ Chicken.
Jonathan Neman, co-founder and CEO at Sweetgreen, said in a statement that the chain spent years developing the platform and created a new tortilla and sourced white cheddar and bacon that met its standards.
The wraps could help drive incremental traffic as they did during the test in April. This could attract new customers to the beleaguered brand, which posted its steepest same-store sales decline ever, 12.8%, during the first quarter.
Sweetgreen has tried other menu items outside of its comfort zone, with the 2025 launch of Ripple Fries. But those proved to be too operationally complex and were removed from the menu.
Smoothie King’s flatbreads
The smoothie chain will expand its food menu later this summer with the addition of flatbreads and high-protein items. Smoothie King initially added food last year with protein boxes and loaded toast. It has been installing ovens across its system to prepare for the launch at no cost to franchisees.
The menu expansion is part of a broader brand evolution, which also includes a national advertising campaign and in-store redesigns.
Smoothie King initially expanded beyond its traditional smoothie menu beginning in 2023 when it added smoothie bowls. Those bowls led to strong traffic and sales lifts.
McDonald’s beverage expansion
McDonald’s beverage additions were years in the making: In 2023, the chain launched CosMc’s, a small spinoff concept that served as a testing ground for new menu items and operations. Though CosMc’s was eventually shuttered in 2025, the Golden Arches took the lessons from its tests and used them to develop a new lineup of premium beverages that it then piloted in several hundred stores.
Earlier this month, the chain added refreshers and dirty sodas to its McCafé menu across the U.S. To support the deployment, McDonald’s created a new, in-restaurant beverage specialist position.
The refreshers offer moderate caffeine levels and fruit or boba inclusions, making them a premium option and capitalizing on the health halo associated with ingredients like strawberries and dragonfruit. The dirty sodas — fountain sodas with added syrups and cold foam — are a simpler indulgence play.
The drinks performed well during testing, McDonald’s EVP and Global Chief Restaurant Experience Officer Jill McDonald said on the brand’s Q4 2025 earnings call.
“The new beverage offerings drove incremental occasions across different dayparts as well as higher average check,” McDonald said.
If the full rollout of the new categories performs similarly, it could provide a significant boost to the chain’s same-store sales, while insulating it from competition from expanding beverage chains and from other QSRs that are considering adding more premium drinks.
Panera’s Salad Stuffers
Panera launched its Salad Stuffers on April 8 after spending months developing an Italian Stuffer Roll that can hold a salad without getting soggy. The item allows guests to turn any salad into a handheld item, and executives likened it to using a bread bowl for soup.
The company tested the Salad Stuffers in Norfolk, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, in October to gauge consumer interest and impact on operations.
“We saw incredible transaction growth, great feedback on the quality of the product, but importantly, on our associate side and our employee side, they are equally as excited about this product,” Panera Chief Marketing Officer Mark Shambura said in a recent interview.
The menu addition also falls under the chain’s RISE Transformation plan, which includes providing high-quality food. The chain also added a Mix and Match value menu earlier this year, and expanded its beverage lineup with energy refreshers and frescas.
