When the beloved ranch dressing ran out, Manchester students were sad. Here's how the cafeteria staff announced its return.
Karen Wall, Patch Staff
|Updated Thu, Oct 24, 2024 at 12:49 pm ET
MANCHESTER, NJ — Most people who have fed a middle school-age student can tell you there is one condiment most of them use more than any other: Ranch dressing.
Where older generations may turn to ketchup or mayonnaise to dip their french fries, or lean toward honey mustard or barbecue sauce for chicken tenders, among the younger generations the crème de la crème of dressings is creamy ranch.
And it's not just fries getting doused. Chicken wings, sandwich wraps, and pizza crusts all are fair game for a trip to the dip before being popped in the mouth.
So when the Manchester Township Middle School cafeteria ran out of ranch dressing earlier this month, it was a serious issue for the 586 students at the school.
The cafeteria goes through 8 gallons of ranch dressing each week, said Dina Silvestri, the Manchester Township Schools public information officer. The condiment is ordered in large jugs, like a restaurant uses.
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But glitch led to the middle school cafeteria finding it had used every last drop of ranch in stock.
When the staff announced there would be no ranch dipping, "the students were not happy," Silvestri said. "They were hoping it was a Halloween trick."
It wasn't, however.
"We could feel the students' disappointment when we had to report to the kids about the ranch dressing outage," cafeteria supervisor Felicia Ventura and Kim Hoenge, a cook and cashier, said.
"They could not believe the sincere disappointment in the students' response to the news and how serious the love for ranch dressing is across the middle school's student body," Silvestri said.
As Ventura and Hoenge worked with the cafeteria team to order a ranch restock, they also came up with the idea to dress up in a costume on the day that the dressing was planned to be delivered, she said.
The good news was the ranch well was dry for only one day, Silvestri said.
When it was back, Ventura and Hoenge "walked around the lunchroom, table to table, during each lunch period with a bucket of ranch dressing and a ladle, along with a huge smile, to make up for the day with no ranch," setting off laughter among the students and staff.
"I love the fact that the cafeteria staff here wants to make the lunchroom such a great experience for our students," said Nancy Driber, principal at Manchester Township Middle School. "This is a prime example of the many ways that our MTMS staff makes our school a special place to be and a wonderful community to be a part of."