Centre County-born company continues to grow 20 years after bottling first dressing

Clay and Melanie Phillips are no strangers to the food business. A long-standing staple on Centre County’s culinary scene, their Village Eatinghouse brand has encompassed a Plesant Gap restaurant, catering business and, likely most recognizably, a line of dressings, marinades and sauces that you can find at not just local retailers around the county, but the country.

Today, the husband-and-wife team are focused solely on their product line, an area that they say is growing organically, especially as more families have opted for cooking at home versus going out over the last two years.

When Melanie met Clay more than 20 years ago, he was already bottling his popular Sweet & Sour Italian dressing at the Village Eatinghouse restaurant. According to Clay, “It was our house dressing in the restaurant and we never thought about bottling it until there was a lady that kept coming in saying, ‘I need some of your dressing.’ She started taking it away in Styrofoam cups, and we realized, at that point, maybe we have something here.”

The two realized the potential they had on their hands and, when the brick-and-mortar restaurant closed, they shifted attention to catering and curating a robust product line. “We had already always used these products in our restaurant and catering businesses, but we started bottling more and more products,” Melanie said. “Our barbecue sauce, our Sweet Herby Mustard — instead of just having one salad dressing, we started having dressings, marinades and sauces.”

As the Phillips’s took their products to hungry diners throughout the Northeast, attending festivals and fairs, they also met with local retailers, expanding into the wholesale industry.

“If you look at the map on our website that shows where our products are sold, there are basically 150 local, regional, central Pennsylvania stores. They’re all mom-and-pops that are selling our products. That’s happened because we’re knocking on doors, we’re meeting people, we’re introducing them to our products. We ask them to give it a try in their store. Their customers are taking a risk by buying them, and they’re reordering — and this has just kind of happened really organically for us,” Melanie said.

Now, Village Eatinghouse is going into its sixth year as a brand solely focused on its product line, with no restaurant or catering business on the side, and it’s an endeavor that keeps Clay and Melanie busy. The team of two does all of the production, bottling and shipping themselves, catering to not only their approximately 200 wholesale clients, but also customers who order direct from the Village Eatinghouse website.

“When we closed down the restaurant, we were worried that we wouldn’t have that interaction with the customer, that physical interaction,” Melanie said. “But our wholesale customers have turned into friends. ... We’re actually, physically, taking the product to the small business owners. We know these people — that’s one thing that we really love about our businesses, is interacting with other entrepreneurs.”

But personal relationships can only take a business so far. What is it about the Village Eatinghouse product line that makes the brand stand apart? For Clay and Melanie, they feel their products have a unique flavor that customers can’t find elsewhere. Add to this the facts that each product is hand-crafted and small-batch, shelf-stable, easy to use and filled with ingredients that customers can recognize and pronounce, and you have a winner.

“We make it so easy,” Melanie said. “Our recipes are so simple. Our products are so flavorful. Even if you’re just bringing a pizza home, you’ll want to put some of our Salty & Smoky Italian right on that. Whenever you just want to add more flavor to whatever you’re eating, just use our products.”

Currently, Village Eatinghouse offers six staple salad dressings and marinades, as well as auxiliary products like seasonal items that are available for limited months of the year. This season’s limited-time item is the Simple & Sour Italian dressing, a no-sugar, no-salt version of the original and most popular Sweet & Sour Italian, available until April. However, while the Sweet & Sour Italian dressing was the product to start it all, as well as the top pick for customers, Clay and Melanie have their own favorites, like the Bright & Tangy Italian dressing, as well as the summer-only Mango Peach Poppyseed dressing. Both admit, though, that home cooks can’t beat the versatility of the original Sweet & Sour Italian.

Village Eatinghouse offers a wealth of recipes and cooking ideas for using its line of products on the Village Eatinghouse website and social media pages, from mixing the Sweet & Sour Italian dressing with cream cheese to create a simple dip, to swapping out condiments like ketchup and mustard in recipes with similar Village Eatinghouse products. You can visit the brand’s website at www.villageeatinghouse.net.