D Magazine - His Vandelay Hospitality group opened its first East Hampton Sandwich Co. in 2012. The company now generates $32 million in annual sales.
When he first opened East Hampton Sandwich Co., media reports made much of the fact that Pond was a law school dropout who once washed dishes at Eno's Pizza Tavern. What those stories left out, however, is that he graduated from Texas Tech with a degree in entrepreneurship and never aspired to practice law. "When I decided to go to law school, it was merely because I graduated from college in the middle of the recession and there were no jobs to be had," he says. "It was bottom-of-the-barrel pickings."