Mason Lesser has channeled the patience learned from waiting for set waves into running a successful pizza parlor in Philadelphia. Photos: Manu Migiluez//Mike Prince
When a pro surfer’s salary dries up, the transition to earning a paycheck the “conventional” way can be a tough period. Kalani Robb went into wave pools. Strider Wasilewski, Rosy Hodge, and Chris Cote went into media. Nat Young just launched a career as a real estate agent.
For 25-year-old former Volcom rider, Mason Lesser, pizza was his calling. And he says you can earn “a lot more money” opening a restaurant than being a pro surfer.
Lesser, a New Jersey native, had a seven-year run surfing for a living. He got to travel the world and surf places like Tahiti, Indonesia, and Europe. But he eyed an opportunity for an exit and swapped board bags for pizza ovens. In 2025, he founded Marina’s Pizza in Philadelphia, an hour from the nearest beach.
“I always knew that it would be hard to really make a living off of surfing,” Lesser told The Inertia during a phone call. “I mostly did (surfing) for fun, for myself.”
“Surfing will always be in my life, but right now my priority is making Marina’s one of the best pizza destinations in Philadelphia,” he added in a press release.
Lesser, who learned the pizza business by working in his grandfather’s shop at 14, took three years to find the right space. When the opportunity presented itself, he pounced. Thus far, it’s been a success, he says, and he’s already thinking about expansion.
Lesser rides backhand barrels as well as he cooks pizzas. Photo: Margarita Salyak
While pro surfing and selling pizza may seem worlds apart, Lesser says surfing actually taught him valuable lessons that overlap with business.
“You have to be patient,” Lesser told me. “You can be impatient and take bad deals all day, and not make money. Or you can wait for the perfect one. You can do the same thing in surfing: you take off on shitty waves all day and you won’t get your video (part). You won’t get what you’re looking for unless you wait and go on the right wave.”
Between long 10- to 14-hour days, Lesser says he’s only surfed a few times a month since he opened the business. When there’s a good swell, he heads over to his family’s house in Long Beach Island, New Jersey, to get his fix of waves.
“It’s been so cold in the water, so it’s not that big of a deal,” Lesser chuckled. “It hasn’t been that great of a winter here, so pretty much every good swell I’ve been able to surf. But if it were consistently firing every week, I would definitely be pissed off.”
Given the restaurant just opened in September, Lesser is still hands-on in the business, making sure the pizzas are cooked according to his vision. But once things settle down, he says he’ll still be able to squeeze in a surf trip this summer. He’s eyeing another trip to Indonesia.
Lesser says he doesn’t yet have any specific advice to other fringe pro surfers looking to make a career move, other than, “If you find something that you like, then go for it.”
But when asked if he would have done anything differently in his career trajectory, he did have one minor regret.
“(I would have) stayed in Indonesia longer,” he said. “Always extend the surf trip when everyone tells you to!”
