Oakwood Club celebrating its 50th year

Owner Lance Stewart took over from late dad Ray. Stewart says success about good employees and menu changes.


Oakwood Club Timeline

• 1919: A grocery is operating at 2414 Far Hills Ave., and later adds a bar and restaurant.

• 1944: Winfield Kinney buys the restaurant, transforms it from a sandwich menu to a family restaurant serving lunch and dinner.

• 1950: After three more ownership changes, the eatery becomes the Oakwood Bar and Grill.

• 1962: Ray Stewart and a partner purchase the bar, renovate it and turn it into a fine-dining restaurant known as the Oakwood Club.

• 1992: Ray Stewart dies; his son Lance becomes owner and manager, and daughter Tina Stewart Cass serves as office manager.

• 2012: Oakwood Club celebrates its 50th anniversary.

OAKWOOD — Lance Stewart, owner of The Oakwood Club, is asked the question often: Why don’t you open another restaurant?

Not a chance, Stewart says. “I’ve never contemplated opening a second restaurant,” he said.

“My dad showed me the importance of hands-on customer service, and if we were to open another restaurant, we would lose that. I want to have the best restaurant, not two good restaurants.”

The restaurant that Stewart’s parents founded in 1962 at 2414 Far Hills Ave. will celebrate its 50th anniversary this week with a series of events, including live music every night, the return of several old favorite menu items each priced at $19.62 to mark the founding year, and a special fundraiser Monday night when proceeds will be donated to Dayton Children’s Medical Center in the name of Candy Stewart, Lance’s sister who died of cancer at age 16 in 1968.

The Oakwood Club has navigated some difficult economic times in five decades.

But 1992 was a pivotal year for the restaurant, then celebrating its 30th anniversary. Lance Stewart was 38 and had been working in the restaurant since graduating from the University of Cincinnati when his father Ray died of pancreatic cancer.

“Those were hard shoes to fill,” Stewart said.

“But I had to jump right in and protect everything that he had built.”

Stewart had been overseeing the kitchen, devising menu offerings and beefing up his culinary skills.

“But I knew I had to choose between the kitchen and the front of the house,” Stewart said. Nate Young, who had worked for the restaurant for about 10 years at the time, took over the kitchen and Stewart moved “out front.”

Stewart credits his employees with the restaurant’s success. Six of them — including “Chef Nate” and office manager Tina Stewart Cass, Lance’s sister — have been there 30 years. And Stewart also said the willingness to change the Oakwood Club’s menu to reflect changing tastes of his customers also has kept the restaurant fresh and popular.

Oakwood Club was once limited to a straightforward steakhouse menu, but today offers about half nonsteak entrees, including seafood dishes such as Potato-Encrusted Chilean Sea Bass, Crab Cakes and Walleye. “Customers see us as a place that will try new things,” Stewart said.

Still, Filet Mignon is top seller “by far,” Stewart said. And the restaurant owner still cuts the steaks himself every day.

While embracing menu innovations, Stewart learned the hard way not to mess with some long-standing traditions. Several years ago, he tried replacing the Oakwood Club’s stewed tomatoes — a steakhouse staple, especially in Dayton — with another, more contemporary version that includes roasted whole tomatoes. It didn’t go over well.

“The customers were ready to tie me up,” Stewart said. The stewed tomatoes were swiftly restored.

Check averages have dipped slightly during the most recent economic downtown — “We don’t sell as many $100 bottles of wine” — but an increase in customers made up for the smaller checks, and overall sales have gone up every year since one down year in the 1990s, Stewart said.

He knows he can’t allow himself to become overconfident. “I worry every year,” he said. “If you stop worrying, one year of loss turns into two or three.” But based on 50 years of results, “We’re doing something right here.”

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