The Wayback Machine and Starbucks morning bun history

Decorative title image of archive.org and Starbucks logos with cinnamon roll clip art

All product names, logos, and brands used in this post are property of their respective owners.

I am saddened to report that in late 2020, Starbucks removed my bakery staple, the Cinnamon Morning Bun (or Morning Bun), from the menu. It is no longer available (discontinued) in the US market at Starbucks stores.

In late 2018/early 2019, I had a scare which ended up being a false alarm. At that time, the Morning Bun was only missing from the menu for a short time. I discovered that its brief disappearance was due to a change in the recipe.

One of my drivers for this post is highlighting a use case for the “Wayback Machine” and the value/power of the information it contains. In this case, I am referring to the ability to compare historical nutrition facts, ingredients and other information from a restaurant’s online menu.

In 2019, I used the trusty “Wayback Machine” (archive.org) to prove my hypothesis that the recipe changed. My morning bun at that time was not just a flattened, slightly different tasting “one-off”. The “Wayback Machine” allowed me to review the appearance, ingredients, and nutrition facts of the 2016-2018 morning bun vs. the 2019-2020 one; sure enough, there were differences between the two (and the pre-2016 version as well). I have summarized below if this sort of thing interests you.

FactPre-20162016-20182019-2020
Serving110g110g94g
Calories350390420
Total Fat15g15g22g
Saturated Fat10g9g13g
Trans Fat0.5g0.5g1g
Cholesterol40mg45mg160mg
Sodium380mg440mg440mg
Total Carbohydrate54g56g46g
Dietary Fiber2g2g1g
Sugars21g22g14g
Protein7g8g9g
WayBack LinkLinkLinkLink

And what blog post is complete without images; here are historical pictures of the Starbucks Morning Bun.

Pre 2016

The pre-2016 Starbucks Cinnamon Morning Bun

Photo by Starbucks via web.archive.org

2016-2018

The 2016-2018 Starbucks Cinnamon Morning Bun

Photo by Starbucks via web.archive.org

2019-2020

The last 2019-2020 Starbucks Morning Bun

Photo by Starbucks via web.archive.org