Thomas J. Sand, Jr. has helped fashion the restaurant Rue Dumaine in Washington Township, Ohio as a dining spot where friends can meet in a welcoming atmosphere and enjoy each other’s company, facilitated by delicious food and fine wine.
Sand left Alter High School and headed southeast to enter Ohio University. A few years later, he returned to his hometown and transferred to the University of Dayton, graduating with a B.S. in Business Administration in 1991.
Sand began his career working in sales for Cellular One. After a short stint there, his upward mobility took him to Everybody’s Furniture, where he sold “office environments.”
A few years later, Sand happened to meet Alter High School friend Anne Kearney one evening. When they ran into each other, they both recognized a former Alter classmate and began catching up on each other’s lives. A romance blossomed, and after an expensive Dayton-New Orleans courtship (think “weekly airfare”), they married on October 10, 1998. Sand—utilizing his U.D. degree—immediately began assisting in the day-to-day operations of Peristyle, Kearney’s restaurant in New Orleans’ French Quarter.
As Sand applied his business skills and followed his intuition about the caliber of the dining experience he wanted to fashion, Kearney was racking up national culinary awards. Peristyle prospered and became one of the most famous destination restaurants in New Orleans and the United States.
In 2004, with Anne’s father suffering from Alzheimer’s, the couple returned to Dayton to be near both of their families. Sand helped establish “Two Small Tomatoes,” an all-natural garden cultivated on the Kearney family farm in Lebanon. Produce was sold at area farmers’ markets, but the ultimate vision was to grow much of the fresh produce used in the restaurant he and Kearney were planning. The strategy was to control quality as much as possible: from seed to serving.
Sand remembers food-related family rituals when he was young. Each Fall, he would anticipate the gooseberry jam and other treats from the Western Slope of Colorado that his grandmother Sand would send. At Christmas time, he would anticipate his grandfather’s gift, eventually being overjoyed with a wheel of Maytag Bleu cheese. Early influences such as these are a part of the reason he returned to the Dayton area to create a new casual dining experience.
The new restaurant came to fruition as Rue Dumaine, which opened in November 2007. Translated from French as “Dumaine Street,” the restaurant is named after the New Orleans street on which the Peristyle restaurant was located. The décor of Rue Dumaine embraces a few of the subtle French accents from New Orleans, but the focal point is a beautiful, ornate, hand-made walnut bar. It was designed by Sand and crafted by Brian Stull Woodworks in Ludlow Falls. Integral to the design of the bar is another Stull masterpiece: the wine room, stocked with boutique wines that Sand chooses from around the world.
Sand’s responsibility at Rue Dumaine extends from the bar and wine room to the front of the house. Sand explains the vision that he and Kearney share for the restaurant: “We consider Rue Dumaine an extension of our dining room at home; it affords us the opportunity to entertain many more guests. We thoroughly enjoy introducing your palate to a new and wonderful flavor combination that you’ve never before experienced; or sharing a certain subtle bouquet from a boutique wine that adds layers of richness to the type of wine you always order.”
The foundation for Sand’s business, “I like to make others happy and give them the opportunity of letting go of their daily tribulations, through dining with a friend or a loved one and making others look good. There is a big difference between ‘eating out’ and ‘dining out.’ That is what my Grandpa Blair taught me! Sitting at a table and being with friends and family and eating a pecan pie: that is ‘dining out.’ Talking, eating but more importantly enjoying each other! As for our community, it is not as much about Rue Dumaine as it is our wonderful restaurant community in Dayton. What a treat to have someone call, ask to come to your ‘home’ and pay you! How lucky are we! We get to have a party every night!”
With such an attitude, is it any wonder that Rue Dumaine has prospered? Sand is pursuing his goal and striving every day to improve Rue Dumaine as a family business, and to help improve the thriving restaurant industry in this wonderful community which we are all a part of!