Twin Peaks is a sports lodge concept that pushes innovation in both food and beverage. This casual-dining restaurant confounds expectations, illustrating how a nimble and trend-forward approach to menu innovation pays off. Alex Sadowsky leads the charge, serving as director of culinary, beverage and menu innovation for Twin Peaks, which is part of FAT Brands. We sat down with him to discuss flavor development, menu success, and how he balances innovation with growth.

Katie Ayoub: What’s the bestseller at Twin Peaks?
Alex Sadowsky: Chicken wings, chicken wings, chicken wings. We’re a sports bar so they’re a natural fit—they pair well with beer, and I think they’re comforting and familiar to everybody.

KA: A few years back, we talked about the importance of sauce innovation at Twin Peaks, given that it’s the easiest way to introduce global cuisines and other new flavor combinations. What’s your approach like today?
AS: I’m trying to push sauce innovation further than in the past. I’m working probably two years out on development. I’m tracking the menu adoption cycle from Datassential, then asking: Is this a fad? Where’s it popping up? Is it in Chicago? Iowa? And then: When can we really engage with that flavor and make it mainstream? Sauce is relatively easy because it’s low commitment and low dollar spend to try something new. I think it’s the easiest way to put a twist on the familiar.

KA: How far can you push heat or sweet heat? How adventurous are your diners in trying a fermented heat or a flavor they’re not familiar with at all?
AS: We’re pushing innovation, for sure. We’re actually revisiting gochujang right now, and also looking at Thai bird chiles and some of the African-inspired flavors. I love those flavors, though I think they’re still in their infancy in casual dining. We’re playing with a Thai seasoning blend called zab, which I saw at the Flavor Experience a few years ago. It’s got dried lemongrass, dried fish sauce and dried chile powder with a little bit of sugar—it makes an incredible dry rub.

KA: Walk us through your innovation process.
AS: I’ve tried to democratize the process a little bit. It’s a combination of consumer insights, gap analysis, data analytics, and looking at our targeting competitors. I try not to rely on information about competitors too much because that’s how you end up in this trap of everyone having the exact same menu. Our process starts with inspiration, then moves into questions. What are we missing? Who’s got something cool somewhere else? How do we break that down? How does that stack up against everything else? And then we get down to the details of how it fits our consumer and our brand. You have to live and breathe in your four walls and be the brand champion through innovation every step of the way.

KA: How does the Twin Peaks customer factor into innovation?
AS: There are 10 tenets that we live by and put every decision up against. They include: Are we being innovative? Are we being true to our identity as a sports lodge? Is the menu item comforting? Who we are framing those questions around has changed over the last few years. It’s shifted in a good way, in my opinion. We’re skewing more female and a lot younger. Everybody’s doom and gloom about Gen Z—I disagree. I think they’re awesome.

When I first started here about six years ago, our target demographic was a 55-year-old, blue collar, white male, making about $80,000 a year. Our demographic is now 35, with a lot more Latinos and African Americans, and way more women. And I think we’re skewing even younger than that, which is driven in part by sports fandom. Also, we came out swinging during COVID. People were using us as their neighborhood corner bar and then fell in love with the fact that we’re making everything from scratch and at a good value.

KA: Is your menu development today aimed at attracting younger consumers?
AS: No, not necessarily. I want to be narrow and deep. So if the chicken wings with a cool flavor crosses a generational line, that’s awesome. If it crosses a large-scale demographic, that’s awesome. Global flavors, sweet heat—they have universal appeal.

KA: Twin Peaks doesn’t run LTOs. What’s the strategy here?
AS: It’s just as much work to get a full menu placement as it is an LTO. In fact, it might be more difficult to do LTOs. It’s like landing on an aircraft carrier. You’re doing all of this work behind the scenes, forecasting all the supply chain stuff, too. Then you get stuck with an item—even if it sold really well—because time ran out on the LTO and now you have a lot of products sitting in a warehouse and you have to do something about it. So I’m going to shoot for a full menu replacement and then work backwards from that. Whatever’s the lowest-selling item on the menu, I’ll cut and introduce a new one. You have to manage customer reaction though. It’s kind of like dealing with little kids: I don’t want to take away all their toys at one time. Instead, it’s about letting them know we really need to make room for their new Christmas presents.

KA: How robust is your innovation pipeline, introducing new items onto the core menu?
AS: We were adding items almost monthly when we were strictly using QR code during COVID and post-pandemic. Now, we’re a hybrid with both QR codes and print menus. So we’ll probably shake out somewhere in the middle and introduce new items every other month or so. You’ll see a lot of recipe reworks and two to four large-scale launches: a sports-centric launch before football season, another one before March Madness, and some other stuff in the middle. I’ve been doing a lot of beverage development right before the Super Bowl so we can train up and get ready to go for March Madness. We’ll do another beverage refresh in the middle of summer during the heart of baseball season.

I’m trying to get us as close to being seasonal as possible. Our recent food refresh included seven items. It could be just a couple tweaks here and there or a full new launch, like our new trout and our lobster mac and cheese. We’re dipping our toes into a new process where the rollouts almost act as LTOs. We added new seafood menu items right before Lent, but we kept them on even after that period was over. It’s getting the best of both worlds, we hope.

KA: Tell us about the Rainbow Trout rollout.
AS: We replaced our old trout dish with this new blackened trout and rolled it out in a few locations as a test. We saw a 400 percent increase in trout orders. And the interesting part was we thought it was going to cannibalize salmon a little bit and we were willing to give that up, but it didn’t happen at all. The salmon crowd and the rainbow trout crowd are totally different consumers. One is kind of like, “Yep, I’m the salmon eater. Just give it to me.” The trout person is someone that wants that skin-on experience. It’s a more elevated presentation than before, but still at a really good price. My goal with all of our innovation is to be aspirational. Let’s take some shots and do cool stuff. We are a scratch kitchen, and we don’t get enough credit for it.

KA: FAT Brands recently acquired Smokey Bones so that concept is now in play for you, too. In addition, you’re expanding reach with Twin Peaks. How do you balance innovation with growth across the brands?
AS: The only way anybody else will catch us is if we let up on innovation and pause to concentrate only on growth mode. You have to do both at the same time. We’re always looking at how we can be better. Do we need new glassware? Do we need new plates? New fryers? Do we have enough TVs? What about the layout? How are we tweaking that? Are we getting better? Are we better than we were yesterday?

KA: Describe Twin Peaks’ beverage innovation.
AS: We’ve gone all in on beverage innovation. Right now, we’ve jumped into the deep end on all things agave-based. In general though, I approach innovation in the beverage category the same way I do in the kitchen. We are lucky to have a 50 percent bar mix, so we’re pushing that program every day. We need to take beverage super seriously, too. If we’re going to make a tequila cocktail, is the glass right? Is the ice right? Is the garnish right? Are we doing fresh juices? Can we partner with beverage companies exploring innovative flavor trends—both boozy and nonalcoholic—so we can keep pushing the envelope?

I’m really proud of our innovation, and I feel like that’s why we have the bar mix that we do. Fifteen years ago when this brand started, it was all things beer. We still sell a lot of beer. Our frozen beer is great; nobody can beat us on it. But how do we make sure our cocktail menu is strong and stays trend-forward? We track the trends and figure out when to strike. What I’ve found over the six years I’ve been with Twin Peaks is that we’ve stayed ahead of the curve. I actually think we need to hold ourselves back a little bit. We’ve been jumping in wholeheartedly on some trends, like the rum craze. I made a rum old fashioned five years ago, and now it’s finally getting some traction. We’re doing more mainstream mezcal drinks, tracking Japanese whisky, non-alcoholic cocktails, beer cocktails, wine cocktails.

QUICKFIRE

Source(s) of inspiration:
I like to go out to eat and drink—no surprise. I’m on Instagram and TikTok combing through everything and reading magazines and cookbooks. But I really get inspired when I go out, see it and breathe it.

Something in your fridge that would surprise people:
Non-dairy yogurts, especially the coconut milk-based varieties.

Cuisine or ingredient you’re particularly excited to explore:
I am really enjoying exploring African cuisine. I also love Indian food and Korean food. I think it kind of pings a few different flavor trends. I can add gochujang to fermented honey so I’ve got sweet heat, and then add black garlic for that depth. It’s awesome.

Your go-to late-night snack:
It’s a toss-up between pizza and ramen. With pizza, any kind is good. Cold? Don’t care. Detroit? Yes. Focaccia? Yes. Roman? Yep. Pizza bagels? Let’s do that, too.

Best bite you’ve had recently:
Hands down, the Caviar Sandwich at Chubby Fish in Charleston, S.C. It was insane. I never thought I would say this, but I got caviar-ed out. It was on a housemade potato roll, highly buttered, beautifully toasted, beautiful swath of caviar, crème fraiche and chives. Incredible.

Twin Peaks is a sports lodge concept that pushes innovation in both food and beverage. This casual-dining restaurant confounds expectations, illustrating how a nimble and trend-forward approach to menu innovation pays off. Alex Sadowsky leads the charge, serving as director of culinary, beverage and menu innovation for Twin Peaks, which is part of FAT Brands. We sat down with him to discuss flavor development, menu success, and how he balances innovation with growth.

Katie Ayoub: What’s the bestseller at Twin Peaks?
Alex Sadowsky: Chicken wings, chicken wings, chicken wings. We’re a sports bar so they’re a natural fit—they pair well with beer, and I think they’re comforting and familiar to everybody.

KA: A few years back, we talked about the importance of sauce innovation at Twin Peaks, given that it’s the easiest way to introduce global cuisines and other new flavor combinations. What’s your approach like today?
AS: I’m trying to push sauce innovation further than in the past. I’m working probably two years out on development. I’m tracking the menu adoption cycle from Datassential, then asking: Is this a fad? Where’s it popping up? Is it in Chicago? Iowa? And then: When can we really engage with that flavor and make it mainstream? Sauce is relatively easy because it’s low commitment and low dollar spend to try something new. I think it’s the easiest way to put a twist on the familiar.

KA: How far can you push heat or sweet heat? How adventurous are your diners in trying a fermented heat or a flavor they’re not familiar with at all?
AS: We’re pushing innovation, for sure. We’re actually revisiting gochujang right now, and also looking at Thai bird chiles and some of the African-inspired flavors. I love those flavors, though I think they’re still in their infancy in casual dining. We’re playing with a Thai seasoning blend called zab, which I saw at the Flavor Experience a few years ago. It’s got dried lemongrass, dried fish sauce and dried chile powder with a little bit of sugar—it makes an incredible dry rub.

KA: Walk us through your innovation process.
AS: I’ve tried to democratize the process a little bit. It’s a combination of consumer insights, gap analysis, data analytics, and looking at our targeting competitors. I try not to rely on information about competitors too much because that’s how you end up in this trap of everyone having the exact same menu. Our process starts with inspiration, then moves into questions. What are we missing? Who’s got something cool somewhere else? How do we break that down? How does that stack up against everything else? And then we get down to the details of how it fits our consumer and our brand. You have to live and breathe in your four walls and be the brand champion through innovation every step of the way.

KA: How does the Twin Peaks customer factor into innovation?
AS: There are 10 tenets that we live by and put every decision up against. They include: Are we being innovative? Are we being true to our identity as a sports lodge? Is the menu item comforting? Who we are framing those questions around has changed over the last few years. It’s shifted in a good way, in my opinion. We’re skewing more female and a lot younger. Everybody’s doom and gloom about Gen Z—I disagree. I think they’re awesome.

When I first started here about six years ago, our target demographic was a 55-year-old, blue collar, white male, making about $80,000 a year. Our demographic is now 35, with a lot more Latinos and African Americans, and way more women. And I think we’re skewing even younger than that, which is driven in part by sports fandom. Also, we came out swinging during COVID. People were using us as their neighborhood corner bar and then fell in love with the fact that we’re making everything from scratch and at a good value.

KA: Is your menu development today aimed at attracting younger consumers?
AS: No, not necessarily. I want to be narrow and deep. So if the chicken wings with a cool flavor crosses a generational line, that’s awesome. If it crosses a large-scale demographic, that’s awesome. Global flavors, sweet heat—they have universal appeal.

KA: Twin Peaks doesn’t run LTOs. What’s the strategy here?
AS: It’s just as much work to get a full menu placement as it is an LTO. In fact, it might be more difficult to do LTOs. It’s like landing on an aircraft carrier. You’re doing all of this work behind the scenes, forecasting all the supply chain stuff, too. Then you get stuck with an item—even if it sold really well—because time ran out on the LTO and now you have a lot of products sitting in a warehouse and you have to do something about it. So I’m going to shoot for a full menu replacement and then work backwards from that. Whatever’s the lowest-selling item on the menu, I’ll cut and introduce a new one. You have to manage customer reaction though. It’s kind of like dealing with little kids: I don’t want to take away all their toys at one time. Instead, it’s about letting them know we really need to make room for their new Christmas presents.

KA: How robust is your innovation pipeline, introducing new items onto the core menu?
AS: We were adding items almost monthly when we were strictly using QR code during COVID and post-pandemic. Now, we’re a hybrid with both QR codes and print menus. So we’ll probably shake out somewhere in the middle and introduce new items every other month or so. You’ll see a lot of recipe reworks and two to four large-scale launches: a sports-centric launch before football season, another one before March Madness, and some other stuff in the middle. I’ve been doing a lot of beverage development right before the Super Bowl so we can train up and get ready to go for March Madness. We’ll do another beverage refresh in the middle of summer during the heart of baseball season.

I’m trying to get us as close to being seasonal as possible. Our recent food refresh included seven items. It could be just a couple tweaks here and there or a full new launch, like our new trout and our lobster mac and cheese. We’re dipping our toes into a new process where the rollouts almost act as LTOs. We added new seafood menu items right before Lent, but we kept them on even after that period was over. It’s getting the best of both worlds, we hope.

KA: Tell us about the Rainbow Trout rollout.
AS: We replaced our old trout dish with this new blackened trout and rolled it out in a few locations as a test. We saw a 400 percent increase in trout orders. And the interesting part was we thought it was going to cannibalize salmon a little bit and we were willing to give that up, but it didn’t happen at all. The salmon crowd and the rainbow trout crowd are totally different consumers. One is kind of like, “Yep, I’m the salmon eater. Just give it to me.” The trout person is someone that wants that skin-on experience. It’s a more elevated presentation than before, but still at a really good price. My goal with all of our innovation is to be aspirational. Let’s take some shots and do cool stuff. We are a scratch kitchen, and we don’t get enough credit for it.

KA: FAT Brands recently acquired Smokey Bones so that concept is now in play for you, too. In addition, you’re expanding reach with Twin Peaks. How do you balance innovation with growth across the brands?
AS: The only way anybody else will catch us is if we let up on innovation and pause to concentrate only on growth mode. You have to do both at the same time. We’re always looking at how we can be better. Do we need new glassware? Do we need new plates? New fryers? Do we have enough TVs? What about the layout? How are we tweaking that? Are we getting better? Are we better than we were yesterday?

KA: Describe Twin Peaks’ beverage innovation.
AS: We’ve gone all in on beverage innovation. Right now, we’ve jumped into the deep end on all things agave-based. In general though, I approach innovation in the beverage category the same way I do in the kitchen. We are lucky to have a 50 percent bar mix, so we’re pushing that program every day. We need to take beverage super seriously, too. If we’re going to make a tequila cocktail, is the glass right? Is the ice right? Is the garnish right? Are we doing fresh juices? Can we partner with beverage companies exploring innovative flavor trends—both boozy and nonalcoholic—so we can keep pushing the envelope?

I’m really proud of our innovation, and I feel like that’s why we have the bar mix that we do. Fifteen years ago when this brand started, it was all things beer. We still sell a lot of beer. Our frozen beer is great; nobody can beat us on it. But how do we make sure our cocktail menu is strong and stays trend-forward? We track the trends and figure out when to strike. What I’ve found over the six years I’ve been with Twin Peaks is that we’ve stayed ahead of the curve. I actually think we need to hold ourselves back a little bit. We’ve been jumping in wholeheartedly on some trends, like the rum craze. I made a rum old fashioned five years ago, and now it’s finally getting some traction. We’re doing more mainstream mezcal drinks, tracking Japanese whisky, non-alcoholic cocktails, beer cocktails, wine cocktails.

QUICKFIRE

Source(s) of inspiration:
I like to go out to eat and drink—no surprise. I’m on Instagram and TikTok combing through everything and reading magazines and cookbooks. But I really get inspired when I go out, see it and breathe it.

Something in your fridge that would surprise people:
Non-dairy yogurts, especially the coconut milk-based varieties.

Cuisine or ingredient you’re particularly excited to explore:
I am really enjoying exploring African cuisine. I also love Indian food and Korean food. I think it kind of pings a few different flavor trends. I can add gochujang to fermented honey so I’ve got sweet heat, and then add black garlic for that depth. It’s awesome.

Your go-to late-night snack:
It’s a toss-up between pizza and ramen. With pizza, any kind is good. Cold? Don’t care. Detroit? Yes. Focaccia? Yes. Roman? Yep. Pizza bagels? Let’s do that, too.

Best bite you’ve had recently:
Hands down, the Caviar Sandwich at Chubby Fish in Charleston, S.C. It was insane. I never thought I would say this, but I got caviar-ed out. It was on a housemade potato roll, highly buttered, beautifully toasted, beautiful swath of caviar, crème fraiche and chives. Incredible.