he Upreneur podcast has partnered up with SCORE, hosted by Jeremy Straub, to help bring engaging conversations with today’s top leaders and business owners. In today’s episode, we spoke with John Stetson, CEO of Stoner’s Pizza. John is able to run a successful business because he sticks to his principles and his budget. With his experience in private equality, John was able to see the differences between a good business and a great one. He used those learnings to his advantage, growing his business to 9 stores in 9 months.
John Stetson is the Founder and Managing Member of Sunset Bay Capital, LLC, a private equity firm based in Fort Lauderdale, FL. For over 10 years, Mr. Stetson has helped build companies across all industries. He invests and works with the founders and innovators through all stages of growth including IPO’s and Mergers & Acquisitions. Since May 2020, Stetson has served as Chief Executive Officer of Stoner’s Pizza Joint, where he owns 9 units in the FL, GA, and SC markets.
Serial Entrepreneur John Stetson, the owner of Stoner’s Pizza Joint Fort Lauderdale, has always been a pet lover. As a young child, his family worked with a local animal rescue to adopt his beloved bichon mix Max who was his dog for over 19 years. With that love of animals that was instilled by early years, he decided to reach out to the Humane Society of Broward County, and a partnership was born!
Each week over 500 flyers are included on pizza boxes to promote dogs, cats, and other pets currently available for adoption. In an effort to further promote #adoptdontshop, John will generously offer a free year of pizza (1 large pizza per week) to anyone who adopts a pet from the flyer and sends in a picture.
Stoner’s Pizza Joint is best known for stepping up during the COVID-19 quarantine and committing to donate 10,000 pizza slices to those in need. What started as a need to help students who didn’t have lunch during quarantine, has since expanded to include medical staff, first responders, and families that are food insecure. They supported numerous organizations including, the Salvation Army, Broward Health, Peanut Butter & Jelly Project, Covenant House Florida, Arc Broward, Memorial Regional Hospital, Hope South Florida, FLITE Center, Broward County Public Schools, Mobile Pantry of Broward, to name a few.
