Cinnabon Extends Far Beyond The Shopping Mall

When you imagine wandering through the mall, your mind might reflexively call up the sweet, warm scent of Cinnabon wafting through the air. The Cinnabon stand is a food court fixture, but in recent years, the chain has made its way well beyond the confines of the shopping mall. In fact, the nearest Cinnabon product is probably a lot closer to you than you think.

A surprising amount of major restaurant chains offer Cinnabon-branded menu items for either breakfast or dessert, mostly in bite-sized formats that make snacking easy. Here are the restaurants currently serving Cinnabon.

Applebee's serves Cinnabon Mini Swirls, which are fried pieces of dough sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, drizzled with caramel sauce, and served with a side of cream cheese frosting for dipping. This dessert comes about 10 to an order, and it's been on the menu since 2022.

Is there anything The Cheesecake Factory doesn't have on its menu? Unsurprisingly, its mash-up with Cinnabon involves cheesecake. The Cinnabon Cinnamon Swirl Cheesecake has layers of cinnamon cheesecake with vanilla crunch cake and is topped with caramel and cream cheese frosting. It can be purchased by the slice or as a 10" whole cheesecake.

Pizza Hut sells a fairly large variety of baked desserts, like cookies, brownies, cinnamon sticks, and pies, but it also sells orders of Cinnabon mini rolls, which come with 10 to an order. The partnership launched in 2018 and continues to this day; the mini rolls are included as the dessert in Pizza Hut's Triple Treat Box.

Taco Bell serves Cinnabon Delights, which are small doughnut-hole-like bites filled with cream cheese frosting. They're available all day and come in a quantity of two or a full dozen. Taco Bell might not exactly be known for its coffee offerings, but even so, it serves Cinnabon Delights flavored coffee beverages (both cold and hot) alongside its regular brew.

Much fuss has been made over Subway's new footlong treats, including a footlong chocolate chip cookie, a footlong pretzel in partnership with Auntie Anne's, and footlong churro in partnership with Cinnabon. The latter sells for $2, and after tasting it, we can attest that it's got everything you want in a churro: the right balance of cinnamon and sugar, the right amount of exterior crispiness, and a soft center. The Subway "Sidekicks" menu has proven very popular, so we could see this sticking around for a long time.

Wendy's, which has been recently expanding its breakfast menu with items like English Muffin Sandwiches and a Bacon Breakfast Burrito, is the latest chain to collab with Cinnabon. On February 26, Wendy's will begin offering new Cinnabon Pull-Aparts, which are made of glazed Danish dough baked with cinnamon, brown butter, and sugar and finished with a cream cheese icing.

There have been many other Cinnabon brand partnerships, such as at Sonic, which sold Cinnasnacks in 2020—they looked almost like pizza rolls, but were filled with a sweet cinnamon paste and came with an icing cup for dipping.

That barely scratches the surface. Cinnabon co-branded items are not just at fast food chains and restaurants, but also sold as packaged goods such as cereal (with Kellogg) and Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls (General Mills).

Dave Mikita, president of international and retail channels at Focus Brands (parent company of Cinnabon), told The Takeout, "We are dedicated to bringing the iconic flavors of Cinnabon to our fans through both packaged goods and foodservice partnerships, providing them greater access to the brand they love."

Part of the large co-branding strategy gives Cinnabon an incremental reach to customers it ordinarily wouldn't catch at its brick-and-mortar locations; after all, we don't all live near a mall. So if you're craving that warm hit of cinnamon, you can grab some form of Cinnabon just about anywhere, even places you might not have considered before.