Jonathan Butler (entrepreneur)

Jonathan Butler is an American businessman who has founded or co-founded a number of businesses.
Brownstoner.com
Butler launched Brownstoner in 2004 while working the the hedge fund group at Merrill Lynch. By 2008, the blog received 150,000 unique visitors per month. Butler sold Brownstoner.com to BlankSlate in 2015 after "10 years and more than 42,000 blog posts." Schneps Communications acquired Brownstoner from BlankSlate In 2017. Butler partnered with Goldman Sachs to purchase the Studebaker Service Station at 1000 Dean Street in Brooklyn and convert it into small offices for local businesses.ate in 2017.
Brooklyn Flea
With Eric Demby he co-founded Brooklyn Flea in 2008 in a school yard in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. "Perhaps more than any other entrepreneurs in a borough chock-full of kale and crafts, Mr. Butler and Mr. Demby have helped create, curate and nurture the booming Brooklyn artisanal complex." In 2012, he created a partnership with Whole Foods. In 2020, the duo took over the legendary Chelsea Flea market on West 25th Street.
Smorgasburg
Butler and Demby opened Smorgasburg, the biggest weekly outdoor food market in the United States, on the waterfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2011. Smorgasburg has helped launch dozens of small food businesses, including Mighty Quinn's Barbecue. In August, 2015, Smorgasburg began operating on Sundays in Prospect Park. On June 19, 2016, Butler and Demby launched Smorgasburg LA in Downtown Los Angeles. On August 7, 2017, Jonathan Butler was interviewed with chef David Chang at the New York Times' Cities for Tomorrow conference.
Personal
Butler mentioned in a New York Times interview "I have two kids." Butler attended St. Bernard's School in New York City and the Groton School in Groton, MA. He graduated from Princeton University in 1992 and NYU's Stern School of Business in 1998. He worked at Merrill Lynch from 2003 to 2005. His great-grandfather is the architect James Gamble Rogers, who designed numerous buildings at Yale University as well as Butler Library (no relation) at Columbia University.

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