The Fall Lineup
Sonny's BBQ is activating its largest fall menu push to date, adding seven new or returning limited-time items and three seasonal beverages across nearly 100 locations in the southeast beginning September 14. The Orlando-based barbecue chain — one of the largest BBQ brands in the country by unit count — is leaning into shareable formats and premium sides as operators across the casual-dining segment chase higher check averages through add-on attachment.
The anchor LTO is Maple BBQ Pork Burnt Ends, featuring smoked pork collar caramelized in a returning Maple BBQ sauce. A new Buffalo BBQ sauce also debuts this season, extending the brand's condiment-forward identity. Sandwiches include a Maple BBQ Turkey Club on garlic bread and a Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese — both formats that travel well for off-premise orders. Premium sides — Pulled Pork Mac & Cheese and Skillet Potatoes — are priced as add-ons designed to lift per-person averages. Pecan Pie Egg Rolls return by popular demand from last fall's inaugural run, a signal the chain is building a seasonal rotation playbook similar to larger QSR and fast-casual peers.
Beverages and Shareables
The seasonal beverage slate — Winterberry Lemonade, Brown Sugar Spiced Tea, and a Root Beer Float — positions Sonny's to compete for the non-alcoholic beverage occasion that has driven incremental revenue at chains across the casual-dining and fast-casual segments. Beverage attachment remains one of the highest-margin levers available to full-service operators, and purpose-built seasonal sips with distinctive names support both in-store and social media visibility without significant product-cost exposure.
Two value-anchored shareables round out the fall window: Pork 3 Ways at $16.99 and the Sonny's Sampler at $19.99, both running through December. Shareable platters are increasingly central to casual-dining LTO strategy as chains attempt to drive table-level spend without requiring every guest to trade up individually. Shannon Snell, Head Pitmaster at Sonny's BBQ, framed the lineup around the gathering occasion: "From our Maple BBQ Pork Burnt Ends to our Pulled Pork Mac & Cheese, we're giving families the cozy, comfort-food flavors they look for all fall and throughout the holiday season."
Franchise and Growth Context
With nearly 100 units concentrated in eight southeastern states, Sonny's operates at a scale where seasonal menu execution is a meaningful franchisee investment. The chain actively markets area development agreements through sonnysbbqfranchise.com, and consistent LTO programming is a standard tool for maintaining franchisee engagement and driving traffic between core dayparts. The fall window — September through December — is the brand's longest seasonal activation, suggesting the system is treating the period as a distinct traffic-driving quarter rather than a single promotional moment. For independent BBQ operators and regional chains watching from the sidelines, the two-sauce strategy (Maple BBQ and Buffalo BBQ) illustrates how flavor-platform thinking can multiply SKU count without proportionally increasing back-of-house complexity.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
