While Jon Krieger has an eye for opportunity as a serial entrepreneur, his latest venture was fueled by a lifestyle change he never saw coming: a move to the suburbs that laid the foundation for his foray into the world’s fastest-growing sport.
As founder of Padel United Sports Club, he’s leading the charge to bring the red-hot racket sport to the U.S. at a premium level. The club, which opened last January in Tenafly, N.J., and now numbers north of 200 members, is quickly becoming a community hub—a model that Krieger is eager to replicate as padel’s profile prepares to skyrocket stateside.
A born-and-bred New Yorker, he got his start in commercial real estate in the early 2000s, advising enterprising retailers, including SoulCycle, on their rollout strategies. After eight years, he jumped into the retail game himself.
“I transitioned from advising entrepreneurs to becoming one,” Krieger says.
He started building quick-serve restaurant concepts, and eventually cofounded Australian-style coffee brand Bluestone Lane, growing it to some 25 locations before exiting the business in 2018. By then, he’d built a portfolio that included an array of food, fitness, and wellness concepts, including a Brooklyn brewery—until the onset of COVID in March 2020 stopped him in his tracks.
“Some brands ended right there, and some were sold,” he recalls. “I found myself with a good two years to decide what I wanted to do next.”
A big move and a new challenge
Like many New Yorkers, Krieger and his family left the city and moved to Tenafly, an affluent enclave just 15 minutes west across 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 right away—“a very mixed demographic where everyone’s in their forties with kids and runs some kind of company”—the downtown left much 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 soon discovered Tenafly’s suboptimal social scene owed in large part to an entrenched local bureaucracy 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 won, and helped two like-minded neighbors win seats on the city council. Then he transformed an abandoned building in 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 timely opportunity
The padel idea dawned soon after. Krieger had been approached more than once about opening a pickleball concept and declined—“I’m not a fan”—but what he’d heard about the lesser-known racket game piqued his interest.
“Besides being the world’s fastest-growing sport, padel is incredibly dynamic, addictive, and easy to learn,” Krieger says.
The numbers illustrate the opportunity. In 2024, 3,282 new padel clubs opened globally—a 26% increase over 2023, according to Playtomic. Some 30 million people currently play padel in more than 140 countries worldwide. Today, there are around 700 padel courts in the U.S., and some 100,000 players—figures projected to soar to 30,000 and 10 million, respectively, by 2030.
Krieger and his Padel United cofounder, Benji Markoff, were sold.
“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 found a nearby warehouse for rent, signed a lease, and got to work. Last January, Padel United opened with six indoor courts and top-tier wellness amenities including a sauna, steam room, hot and cold plunge pools, and a 40-foot indoor mineral pool. There’s also a café, communal work areas, and private event spaces.
Krieger’s goal is to hit 400 members by year’s end—and while they’re already eyeing their next move, 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 steady wins the race
His advice for other entrepreneurs dovetails with this measured approach.
“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 also 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.”