14 DAY TRIAL // When it comes to eating habits, people are very different from each other, and there is certainly no right way to eat a certain dish. However, the owner of an Italian restaurant located in Dallas, Texas, decided to deter customers from dipping their pizza crust in dressing by “charging” $1000 (or €725) for a side of ranch, a very common dip in the United States.
Jay Jerrier, the owner of Cane Rosso pizzeria, says that his restaurant is famous for its Neapolitan pizza and wants to keep his recipe authentic. That's why he put up a sign and a bottle of Hidden Valley ranch dressing on the dining room wall to inform customers about its hefty price tag.
“For some reason ranch dressing on hot melty cheese just seems weird to me,” he said, according to Daily Mail.
“I thought it'd be funny if I could find one of those ‘in case of emergency break glass’ things,” he added, referring to the bottle hung on the wall.
Jerrier would happily give diners balsamic, Caesar or marinara, but no ranch dressing. Moreover, the restaurant is banning people from bringing in their own ranch dressing.
However, this type of salad dressing is very popular among American gourmands and is used with all types of food, including pizza.
The owner of Cane Rosso restaurant said that, when the restaurant opened in 2011, he was very surprised to see that clients kept asking for ranch dressing to dip their pizza crusts in it – a tradition that is very widespread in the Midwest.
Although the sign was installed a while ago, it has only recently caught people's attention, after a photo of it was uploaded to Reddit and sparked a heated debate with more than 900 comments. On the Internet, what started as a light-hearted joke turned into a controversial dispute about how pizza was consumed.
Some called the owner arrogant and said he was a “food fascist,” while others supported his initiative, arguing that the award-winning pizzeria had the right to decide how pizza was consumed at their location.
Jerrier was surprised that some people took the bottle of ranch so seriously and that they felt offended.
“Everybody [on Reddit] seems to assume we're the worst people in the world, like how dare they tell me how to eat my pizza! Dude, it's a joke. Relax,” he said.