The Midwest’s beloved side kick, ranch dressing is receiving tribute through March and April in Rosedale Centers’s food hall Potluck. Vendors are all featuring signature items that utilize the dressing or spice blend with flair. The flexibility and room for innovation when you mix onion and garlic powder with herbs like dill, parsley, and chives are seemingly endless. Much like the current trend to put Everything Bagel Seasoning on literally anything, Potluck aims to prove the same is true for ranch. From a biscuit with ranch gravy to bacon ranch shake to a ranchy lobster roll, each vendor will feature a signature item with a zany twist.
Fun fact: the green-flecked buttermilk dip and dressing does not actually have Midwestern origins at all. Despite now being lovingly equated with our region, it was invented by a plumber-turned-cowboy named Steve Henson in California on a property called, you guessed it, Hidden Valley Ranch. Forty percent of Americans named ranch as their favorite dressing in a 2017 study.
Betty & Earl’s biscuit with ranch gravy | Facebook
Whether Hidden Valley is a staple at home or you have allegiance to another brand, Potluck’s massive, overflowing cartoon bottle that pours onto the floor frames the entrance, set for an absurd photo opportunity. Potluck visitors are encouraged to take photos with additional ranch installations for a chance to win ranch prizes on social media. That’s right… ranch prizes.
While I appreciate and enjoy the choice businesses have made to revitalize and rebrand a group of vendors in a mall as a food hall, as a Millennial I can’t help but crave the fluorescent neon, kitschy, whimsical, and slightly ridiculous 90s food court vibes of my childhood. Potluck’s ranch-inspired items, embody exactly that. It makes me want to wax poetic about stinky, scrumptious bags of Cool Ranch Doritos in school lunches and pull out my copy of a cookbook with sixty ranchy recipes.
So if you’re feeling playful, stir-crazy, or nostalgic hit the mall. The flexibility to order curbside pickup means you can grab something ranchified, blast some TLC, and cruise safely.