Essentials

Dear Pros,

Last week the messages in our office Slack channel overflowed like a ranch dressing fountain at a wedding after a woman posted a bonkers story (which has since been removed by the moderators) on Reddit's r/AmItheAsshole, and Twitter users had their inevitable field day. Apparently, the ranch-dressing-loving customer left her date, "Michael," at a restaurant that didn't serve ranch (just "some kind of sour cream and dill sauces"), bought her own bottle of dressing at a nearby convenience store, and brought it back to a restaurant. "I just like it and it helps make some things easier to eat," she wrote. When the server told her that the "Polish/Hungarian" restaurant didn't allow outside food, she took the newly acquired bottle out to her car. The ranch lover and Michael will not likely be going on a fourth date.

First off, if you're the kind of person who feels compelled to ask "Am I the Asshole" on Reddit, then it's very possible that, yes, indeed, YTA. But the real question I have for the hospitality Pros among you is what constitutes outside food at your establishment and what are your restaurant's policies for handling customers who bring it in?

We've covered wine corkage fees in this space and why the fees matter to a restaurant's bottom line. Many restaurants also charge "cakeage fees" if you bring your own cake or dessert to a celebratory birthday meal — and rightly so. Maybe restaurants should institute a condiment fee in this modern era when common sense and manners are in short supply? Say, a $10 charge if you want to squeeze some of your own personal bottle of ranch on those pizzas that you and your broskis ordered?

A family friend who is a server in a small town in north Georgia calls her ranch-loving customers "ranchers," and she says she can spot them as soon as they walk into the restaurant with nearly 100% accuracy. It's easy to joke about this stuff, but ranch dressing is a $1 billion business, surpassing ketchup sales in the United States. "It's found on more than half of restaurant menus and in 75% of homes in the U.S.," Jacquie Klein, director of the brand studio that oversees Hidden Valley Ranch marketing, told AdAge. "It's really embedded in our culture."

In one month of 2020, more than 70 million Americans used a bottle of ranch and more than nine million Americans went through three or more bottles during that time period, according to Statista. (Hat tip to my colleague Ali Domrongchai for the ranch research.)

How do you define "outside food" at a restaurant? I have friends who carry little tins of Jacobsen sea salt in their purses or jacket pockets and others who travel with tiny bottles of Cholula and Tabasco, just like Beyoncé. (If only Bernie Mac and Maya Rudolf's Hot Sauce Carry Purse was real.) Tiny containers of salt and hot sauce don't seem egregious to anyone except chefs who refuse to send salt out to a table on principle. But a personal bottle of ranch apparently crosses the line.

Have a good weekend, folks. Look for a big announcement Monday on Food & Wine social handles. And if you missed the news of former New York Times restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton's death, take some time to read about her influence. I'll leave you with this story she wrote for Food & Wine about the veracity of Zagat guides back in 2001.

Warmly,
Hunter
hunter@foodandwine.com

A regular, a busser, and an intern walked into a restaurant … and none of them ever left.