While Jon Krieger has a watch for alternative as a serial entrepreneur, his newest enterprise was fueled by a life-style change he by no means noticed coming: a transfer to the suburbs that laid the basis for his foray into the world’s fastest-growing sport.
As founder of Padel United Sports Club, he’s main the cost to carry the red-hot racket sport to the U.S. at a premium degree. The club, which opened final January in Tenafly, New Jersey, and now numbers north of 200 members, is rapidly changing into a group hub — a mannequin that Krieger is raring to replicate as padel’s profile prepares to skyrocket stateside.
A born-and-bred New Yorker, he acquired his begin in industrial actual property in the early 2000s, advising enterprising retailers, together with SoulCycle, on their rollout methods. After eight years, he jumped into the retail recreation himself.
“I transitioned from advising entrepreneurs to becoming one,” Krieger says.
He began constructing quick-serve restaurant ideas, and finally cofounded Australian-style espresso model Bluestone Lane, rising it to some 25 places earlier than exiting the enterprise in 2018. By then, he’d constructed a portfolio that included an array of meals, health, and wellness ideas, together with a Brooklyn brewery — till the onset of Covid in March 2020 stopped him in his tracks.
“Some brands ended right there, and some were sold,” he recollects. “I found myself with a good two years to decide what I wanted to do next.”
A big transfer and a brand new problem
Like many New Yorkers, Krieger and his household left the metropolis and moved to Tenafly, an prosperous enclave simply quarter-hour west throughout the Hudson River.
“I never in a million years thought I’d live in a suburb, let alone New Jersey,” he says.
While he fell for his new neighbors straight away–“a very mixed demographic where everyone’s in their 40s with kids and runs some kind of company”–the downtown left a lot to be desired.
“It was like someone just stopped trying in 1985,” says Krieger. “I couldn’t understand why. My entire career had taught me that if you have a captive audience with disposable income, you just need to build something great, and then the rest plays out.”
He quickly found Tenafly’s suboptimal social scene owed largely to an entrenched native forms that resisted change.
“In today’s world, if something isn’t growing, it’s dying,” he says. “Everyone I met here used to live in the city, and complained about spending $50,000 a year in taxes while having nowhere to go in town.”
Keen to change that, Krieger dove into politics. He ran for president of the Tenafly Chamber of Commerce and gained, and helped two like-minded neighbors win seats on the metropolis council. Then he reworked an deserted constructing on the town–a historic landmark and “test case for what could be”–into Spring House, a high-end Italian restaurant that opened in 2022.
“People were so excited,” he says. “It was clear there was a market here for community-minded, high-touch premium experiences.”
A well timed alternative
The padel concept dawned quickly after. Krieger had been approached greater than as soon as about opening a pickleball idea and declined–“I’m not a fan”–however what he’d heard about the lesser-known racket recreation piqued his curiosity.
“Besides being the world’s fastest-growing sport, padel is incredibly dynamic, addictive, and easy to learn,” Krieger says.
The numbers illustrate the alternative. In 2024, 3,282 new padel clubs opened globally—a 26% improve over 2023. Some 30 million people currently play padel in more than 140 countries worldwide. Today, there are round 700 padel courts in the U.S., and a few 100,000 gamers—figures projected to soar to 30,000 and 10 million, respectively, by 2030.
Krieger and his Padel United cofounder, Benji Markoff, have been offered.
“We were aligned in our mission to build a place that would facilitate community,” he says, “and also would be somewhere where we’d want to spend time.”
He and Markoff discovered a close-by warehouse for lease, signed a lease, and acquired to work. Last January, Padel United opened with six indoor courts and top-tier wellness facilities together with a sauna, steam room, cold and warm plunge swimming pools, and a 40-foot indoor mineral pool. There’s additionally a café, communal work areas, and personal occasion areas.
Krieger’s purpose is to hit 400 members by 12 months’s finish–and whereas they’re already eyeing their next transfer, Krieger is in no rush.
“We absolutely have plans to expand, and we’ll start getting serious about that in the first quarter of 2026,” he says, citing Westchester, Long Island, and Connecticut as priorities. “We’re not signing leases until we have a perfect playbook in place. The in-person, physical hospitality market is very fragmented, and we see a clear need for a central, trusted ecosystem–that’s really our thesis here.”
Slow and regular wins the race
His recommendation for different entrepreneurs dovetails with this measured method.
“Don’t expand until you’re profitable–that’s number one,” says Krieger. “And stay humble, don’t be impulsive, and be quick to pivot. Every time I haven’t taken this advice is when I’ve gotten pretty beat up.”
There additionally aren’t any shortcuts to success.
“It doesn’t matter how smart you think you are–any new venture requires iterations and adaptations every day for at least the first 12 to 18 months,” he says. “Nothing happens easily–you need incredible partners, timing, strategy, market fit, and a lot of hard work.”