[brought up due to "How will you have your steak? thread]
Fellow carnivores...
Years ago, I'd eat at a little crappy $5 steakhouse. (Good burgers, though). Was a Sizzler before I went there, then owner figured he didn't wanna pay the franchise fee & took down the logo. Odd to be in a old-style non-Sizzler Sizzler with the "wooden cow" wall menus.
This place had the friggin' *BEST* steak sauce. 'Twas "Sexton" steak sauce, produced by the S.E. Rykoff company. (I believe the whole product line was "Sexton Fine Foods". Co. may have stood on their own before being acquired by Rykoff.) Sexton was a whole line/grade of products: not just steak sauce, but all sorts of condiments, pickles, etc. - maybe even mashed potatoes & the like. There were probably other line/grades of products (w/different names) above & below this, depending on the market position of the restaurant. Rykoff also did a lot of cafeteria business in the days when there were more 'lunch counters' around (i.e. Woolworth's, Sears, etc).
Restaurants bought the Sexton sauce in bottles but to save money could later refill bottles from a bulk container.
Seems Sexton sauce was private-labelled ("OEM'd") for other restaurants too. In the late 80's/very early 90s, Black Angus had their own private steak sauce, which was this WONDERFUL Sexton sauce. Friendly waitresses at local Angus would set me up with a few bottles now & then but then Angus got in bed with the A1 folks for a marketing gig, and have served A1 ever since.
S.E. Rykoff was a big restaurant/institutional foodservice co. - soup mix, buns, sauces, straws & napkin refills - in the West (maybe even nationally, but certainly SF/LA, maybe Portland/Seattle). Slogan was "Enjoy life, eat out more often!", which I loved. Rykoff eventually got purchased by someone, IIRC, that eventually got bought out by "J.P. Foodservice" The Sexton & Rykoff brands seem to have faded out. Perhaps Sexton sauce still exists under another wrapper.
If anyone knows where this GREAT steak sauce ended up or what it's branded as now, I'd love to find out. If I can buy it - no matter the quantity - lemme know! Maybe fellow AR15 carnivores & I can do a bulk purchase. ;-)
For reference, it'a a close kin, flavor-balance-wise, to Heinz 57, but is distinctly different (and better, and I love 57!) Not too sweet, sour, bitter, etc. Great balance. Sauce is only a mite darker - a tad less orangish, a bit more red - than 57, and a tad less thick, although much thicker than runny A-1 sauce. For I.D., it came in a med. size round bottle w/a dark brown cap - bigger than a typical Tabasco bottle but smaller than a std ketchup bottle, about same form-factor as a reg square A1 sauce bottle.
For the record, it has NOT shown up again in the form of House Recipe, Bullfighter, Crystal, or Lea & Perrins steak sauces, or any "generic" steak sauce types in Safeway or Albertson's. I know; have 12 bottles of sauce in my fridge and buy new ones when I encounter 'em.
Closest kin flavorwise might be the delicious, late and lamented Sharwood's Steak Sauce (from Britain), but Sharwood's stopped production in late 90's and only makes chutneys (whatta letdown!).
I know you'll all love this stuff - several of my friends have fond, fond memories of this sauce too - so that may make the hunt that much more pleasant...
Regards,
Bill Wiese
San Mateo, CA