Over the last two decades, Jon has created marketing wins for brands small and large. For his family’s business Burgermaster, a chain of drive-in restaurants in Seattle, WA, Jon was able to build a website to 25,000 visits+ / year, and drove thousands of phone calls across the 5 Burgermaster locations.
At TurnKey, a vacation rental management company, Jon positioned the company as an acquisition target via an overhaul of the visual brand. TurnKey went on to be acquired for $600MM in 2021.
Jon is also a co-owner of Slow North along with his wife Michelle, where he designed the visual look of the website, product labels, boxes and marketing materials. He started learning SEO in 2018, and after much trial, error, experiments and articles, helped Slow North realize a 650% sustained rise in organic search traffic. The Slow North store sits at the top spot in the Google ‘Map Pack’ for ‘Candles near me’ and ‘Candle workshops’ in north central Austin, where the retail shop is located.
A restaurant kid, from a restaurant family
Sometimes your future chooses you
My journey starts way back in 1948
Not quite my journey. My grandpa Phil opened his first restaurant, Phil's Waffle Shop, in downtown Seattle in 1948. After losing the lease to Phil's and opening another restaurant, he partnered with the Moet brothers to open Burgermaster in Seattle's university district, near the University of Washington
My parents take over a Burgermaster location in 1982
My parent Jack and Michele, entrepreneurs themselves, moved back to Seattle from California (with me in tow) in 1982. Between the Aurora and Everett locations, they ran restaurants for over 40 years.
Business at Thanksgiving and Christmas, first job
My first job at 12 was making shakes and sodas at the fountain station at the Aurora Burgermaster during peak hours. We spent every Saturday at my grandparent's house and my memories are full of discussions about Burgermaster locations, revenue growth, the economy and various other restaurant-adjacent topics.
I'll never be a line cook - sorry, dad
I tried. It turns out, I couldn't master a medium eggs during the breakfast rush. I worked hard, but it was clear I didn't have the chops for the kitchen. Luckily, I had an interest in online marketing, and in 2005 I started helping Burgermaster develop their first website. Phil thought it was a waste of time until someone called the restaurant to place a to-go order with a menu they had downloaded from Burgermaster.biz - that was a proud moment