An Italian restaurant in Dallas has sparked a heated debate about the right way to eat a slice of pizza.
Eater reported that Jay Jerrier, owner of Cane Rosso Pizzeria, charges his customers $1,000 for a side of ranch dressing. Jerrier's restaurant happily offers Caesar or marinara, but says that the ranch dressing will cost customers a bundle.
"It's weird, it always seems to be young, college-age girls that ask for it," he told Eater.
Jerrier purchased a glass case to place a bottle of Hidden Valley ranch in and then hung the $1,000 price tag next to it, stating that he thought it would be funny if he "could find one of those 'in case of emergency break glass' things."
However, what started off as a simple joke, turned into a heated debate when a picture of the sign was posted on Reddit earlier this month. The debate received 900-plus comments--some of them unhappy with Jerrier's decision, and others defending him. Several called Jerrier "arrogant."
One user posted: "I thought our society was trying to evolve past telling people how to live their lives. So you're telling me people had the right to their own sexual, religious, and ideological preferences but they don't have the right to their own food preferences?"
But Jerrier said he was surprised people were offended by the "bottle joke."
"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," Jerrier told Eater. "I really don't know how you could look at [the glass case of ranch] and not automatically know it was a joke. I guess without understanding our whole body of work and what our 'bit' is... I don't know. It was pretty funny how people did take it really seriously and were super offended."
In any case, Jerrier stands firm in his views staing, "Ranch just seems like such an excess. And to me, I just never thought the two went together."
