---
title: "He Quit His Job to go all in on Club Pilates"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/4934e9e3-3266-435c-88b4-d4ef01987d14
source: "Empires Weekly"
original_url: https://empirespod.substack.com/p/he-quit-his-job-to-go-all-in-on-club-adc
author: "Patrick Buckley"
category: "Boutique fitness"
industry: "Fitness"
segment: "Boutique fitness"
published: 2026-02-19T11:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-10-31T14:43:31.935Z
image: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xx73!,w_1200,h_600,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1a20b506-59e5-4870-b89e-cf6968ab93b4_1920x1080.png
---

# He Quit His Job to go all in on Club Pilates

**TL;DR:** Jon left his family business in 2016 to invest in Club Pilates and now owns 48 studios across three states. He recently partnered with private equity to scale towards 100 locations.

*By Patrick Buckley, originally published in Empires Weekly on 2026-02-19. [Read the original](https://empirespod.substack.com/p/he-quit-his-job-to-go-all-in-on-club-adc).*

## Story

In 2016, Jon left a secure family business to invest in a then-emerging boutique fitness concept: Club Pilates.

Less than a decade later, he owns 48 studios across three states and recently partnered with private equity to scale toward 100 locations.

- The early unit economics of Club Pilates

- How his first studio became cash-flow positive in under two months
- Labor, rent, and margin targets inside a boutique fitness model
- The operational realities of scaling to 24+ units
- Why debt became harder to secure — and what triggered the private equity decision
- How franchise consolidation works in fragmented systems
- What private equity actually changes inside a growing business

This conversation is a deep dive into franchise scaling, capital strategy, and disciplined growth in brick-and-mortar businesses.

## Entities

- unit expansion (topic)
- Fitness (sector)
- private equity (topic)
- boutique fitness (topic)
- Club Pilates (company)
- Empires Weekly (publication)
- Patrick Buckley (person)
- franchise scaling (topic)
- Private Capital Advisors (company)

---
Originally reported by Patrick Buckley, Empires Weekly (https://empirespod.substack.com/p/he-quit-his-job-to-go-all-in-on-club-adc). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/4934e9e3-3266-435c-88b4-d4ef01987d14).