Is Ranch copyrighted or does house mean it’s a different style distinct from ranch?
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
House Sauce can be anything the restaurant wants to make & serve?
It could be Ranch, a honey mustard, or spicy sauce.
While ranch dressing was originated by the Hidden Valley Ranch brand, and while there were apparently trademark lawsuits over the use of the name when the style became popular in the 1970s, it appears that it’s long since become a generic term.
I don’t think that “house dressing” has a specific type (and I don’t think it’s necessarily synonymous with ranch dressing), but I may be mistaken.
I suspect it’s this. Calling it house sauce allows the restaurant to change what it’s serving based on cost and availability. It’s the equivalent of sour du jour.
Googling “house dressing” doesn’t yield any specific type. They include vinagrettes and creamy dressings. Some indicate that they are the homemade dressing made at their own house. “House dressing” just means the kind of dressing that is standard at a particular restaurant. It can be anything.
The OP has evidently encountered some restaurants that have a house dressing similar to Ranch, but who choose not to call it by that name.
“House Dressing” is whatever Sysco had a special on that week.
No. a restaurant serves a house dressing. It is their own recipe and can take any form the chef wants, but they don’t change it. That would make no sense: regulars want to know what to expect, especially if they like what they had the last time.
Those people are going to be surprised if they expect they’re going to get the same soup du jour or chef’s special that they had last month.
I don’t think it does, either, but I do remember in the late 80s/early 90s thinking “house dressing” was synonymous with ranch for some reason, so the OP isn’t the only one who has thought the same.
Maybe that’s why we had a server ask us if we wanted to hear what the *“Soup Du Jour of the Day” *was.
soup of the day, or today’s special, will be different from day to day. I expect the “house dressing” or “our famous rolls”, etc., to be the same every time I go back.
There’s still places calling it House Dressing, Jack in the Box and Carl’s Jr. for starters. I’ve also seen other places like Sizzler do it too.
I’ve been to places where the “house dressing” was a vinegar based Italian dressing. In fact this was more common (back in Cleveland) than house dressing meaning ranch, in my experience.
I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of a restaurant having ranch as their house dressing.
“I’m sorry, sir, today’s sour is Tart. Tuesday’s when we whip up a batch of Astringent. Afraid you’ll have to come back next week.”
Jack in the Box and Carl’s Jr. are only calling it that to seem more like the friendly corner diner and less like the faceless, soulless, money-snorting Mega-Corporations they are. A bit cynical about that, I am.
This was similar to my experience at a restaurant where I worked for over a decade and the house dressing never changed. I do think it was just Sysco Italian (or something similar), though.
Yes. In north central West Virginia where many people are of Italian descent, a “house dressing” in an Italian restaurant is a homemade Italian dressing that has typically been in the family for generations. They will sell it to you by the pint, quart, or even a half gallon for carry out. People that have moved away and are back visiting families will stop in at these restaurants to buy the dressing to take home.
I guess that feeding off of that, if you go to a diner and ask for “house dressing” it will be Italian dressing out of a bottle. I have never heard of ranch dressing being “house dressing.”