Secret fast food: 10 items you won't see on the menu

Ten of the strangest, most innovative entrees you won't see on fast food menus – but can get anyway, if you ask. 

6. 'Power' menu (Panera)

Alfredo Sosa/Staff
A Power Chicken Hummus Bowl from Panera with chicken, jalapeno-cilantro hummus, and assorted vegetables.

Viral marketing is now a fact of our everyday lives, and that means large companies are finding new and exciting ways to co-opt what were formerly unorganized, nonserious Internet diversions (e.g. secret menus, YouTube videos) for corporate gain. The Panera “Hidden” menu had its own New York launch party last year, and a promotion-heavy release of the menu in January followed. But the café stopped short of listing the items on its menu, so they retain their “hidden” distinction.

As we’ve learned so far, secret items are often a bridge too gluttonous for the main menu. Panera has gone the other way, and its Hidden Menu includes six high-protein, low-carb, health-conscious dishes for breakfast and lunch, including a breakfast bowl with eggs, tomatoes, steak, and avocado; a chicken hummus plate; and steak lettuce wraps.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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