Winter Flavors Get an Early Start on Fall Menus

Winter flavors and menu items are showing up on fall menus well ahead of the holidays, according to Datassential’s Fall Trends 2026 report. 

Traditional winter and holiday flavors are indexing higher on fall menus, with candy cane and gingerbread “muscling onto fall menus well ahead of the holidays,” the report notes. 

Gingerbread appeared in 10 LTOs, new menu items, and returning items at major chains last fall. Peppermint, another holiday staple, showed up in 41, with nearly 40 of those launching in November alone, right as the season was ending and the holidays were coming into view. 

Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, Scooter’s Coffee, and Playa Bowls all worked peppermint into fall lineups last November, with an Oreo Cookie Peppermint Shake, a Candy Cane Forest Cinnamon Roll, and a North Pole Acai Bowl, respectively. Outback, Starbucks and First Watch did the same with gingerbread, in a Gingerbread Cookie Martini, an Iced Gingerbread Chai, a Cheesecake Holey Donuts with Nutella.

Cranberry sauce is showing the same pattern from the savory side. It indexes high in both sweet and savory fall applications, alongside butternut squash, stuffing, and oven-roasted turkey.

That crossover fits a broader pattern of seasonal flavors moving earlier. Fall’s own launch calendar has compressed the same way, according to the report: in 2024, major chains released the most fall LTOs, new items, and returning items in November, but by 2025, that peak had shifted two months earlier, to September.

Fall’s holiday associations follow a clear hierarchy, too. Sixty-nine percent of consumers associate Thanksgiving with restaurant specials, LTOs, or seasonal menu items, followed by Halloween at 46% and Oktoberfest at 29%. Boomers are especially likely to link Thanksgiving to seasonal offerings, at 78%, while Gen X follows closely at 75%. 

Newer holiday trends are gaining ground alongside those mainstays: Day of the Dead and Mid-Autumn Festival are both drawing more interest from younger consumers, giving operators additional occasions to extend fall’s holiday marketing beyond the traditional trio.