Hardee's Taps Alisa Gmelich as New President
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CKE Restaurants names marketing veteran Alisa Gmelich President of Hardee's, tasking her with rebuilding franchisee trust and driving growth.
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Holiday-driven menu drops fuse nostalgia with wellness, turning menus into living calendars for fast-casual brands.
Photo by shen wenjie
Autumn light lingers as Halloween recedes, and the dining room becomes a forecast rather than a snapshot. In fast-casual, menus no longer stand as static anchors but as living calendars that bend with holidays, harvests, and the whims of supply. The season's tempo is set by a chorus of updates where operators test limits with seasonally tinged flavors and playful formats. At the center of this shift sits Velvet Taco and its WTF Weekly Taco Feature, a rotating showcase that translates appetite into timely engagement. Seasonality becomes a canvas, and the calendar holds the brush:
Upcoming items, such as Gochujang Pork and Double Stack Beef, reveal how seasonality and supply shape storytelling as much as flavor. Meanwhile, nothing is spared from the seasonal cadence: Nothing Bundt Cakes introduces an Oreo Dirt Cake, a chocolatey nod to Halloween that nests pudding, Oreo pieces, and gummy worms under a glossy glaze of whimsy. The message is clear: menus now invite the date on the plate, and the date is the attraction.
Across the industry, the playbook tilts toward short-term drops and rotating features that stay top of mind as daylight shortens. Brands lean into scarcity and storytelling, releasing items for defined windows and tying them to seasonality rather than to a fixed year-round menu.
Savory showcases become a chorus of idea-portfolios: Arby’s Deep Fried Turkey returns for the season with a new Apple Pie Shake, while Friendly’s leans into the Cone Head tradition with Tom the Turkey in November, followed by Rudy the Reindeer in December. Dog Haus tees up turducken-themed items for November, a reminder that hybrids remain a show-stopper. And as the calendar narrows, nostalgia and novelty dance in step, each drop a reminder that the holidays are a premium stage for flavor and story.