Henry Kaminski Jr / Restaurant and Hospitality Marketing and Branding Expert

Henry Kaminski Jr. is a force in hospitality branding, with 16+ years in the creative industry and a story that reads like a movie script. 

After losing $300K overnight when Hurricane Sandy wiped out his top clients, Henry reinvented himself—landing Russell Brunson as a branding client, helping launch ClickFunnels, and becoming a thought leader in personal branding. 

As former CMO for celebrity chef Fabio Viviani’s hospitality group, he doubled locations nationwide and implemented cutting-edge marketing tools in a traditionally outdated industry.

Now with his new venture, Brand to Table, Henry is fusing digital innovation with high-touch hospitality. 

In this episode, he shares the real stories behind the rise, the falls, and the reinventions. 

From SMS marketing that drove $1.3M in restaurant revenue to GPT-powered menu generators and brand strategy breakthroughs—this is a masterclass in modern branding.

Guest Bio: 

Henry Kaminski Jr. is a branding expert with over 16 years in the creative industry, specializing in restaurant and hospitality marketing. Known for launching the Brand Doctor and helping personal brands thrive, Henry has worked with major names like Russell Brunson and served as Chief Marketing Officer for a national hospitality group, doubling their locations in under three years. Today, he runs Brand to Table, a firm blending deep hospitality insight with cutting-edge tech like AI, SMS, and GPT-powered marketing to transform how restaurants scale and connect with customers.

Link: https://www.brandtotable.com

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (04:58.19)
Hey, welcome to the Headsmack podcast. name is Paul Povolni and I have another misfit with me. have Henry Kaminski Jr. with me. I have known Henry for quite a few years. We're both branding guys like Henry, like his, he had a podcast. I enjoyed listening to it. I was on at one time. A lot of wisdom, a lot of experience in the branding space. He has been 16 years in the creative industry, specializing in restaurant and hospitality, marketing and branding. Henry, how you doing, man?

Henry Kaminski Jr (05:33.297)
man, long time no see. How are you my friend?

Paul Povolni (05:36.434)
I am doing good, man. looking, I was looking forward to this and looking forward to this conversation. We're going to have a lot of fun. looks like you've got some sun. got some sun as well on my, vacation celebrating my 30th anniversary. I'm a little toned down than I was, but I was like, yeah, yeah. 30 years, man. first day, first day at the beach, I got sunburned. So I'm finally getting back to normal shade. but, good to see you, man. It's been a while.

Henry Kaminski Jr (05:39.98)
same.

Henry Kaminski Jr (05:52.95)
Well, congratulations. That's pretty amazing. 30 years. Thank God.

Henry Kaminski Jr (06:03.574)
that's great. Likewise, man. Great to hear your voice, man. You know, listen, I've been a huge fan of yours for these years in between that we haven't, you know, we haven't chatted, watched you, you know, build this thing up and really take it by the reins, the show. And I'm just so proud of you. And so so what's the word I'm looking for? You know, from afar, because I'm in New Jersey and you're Midwest and.

You know, the work that you do is so inspiring to me and some of the stuff that you were putting out on social media. I happened to grab and get ahold of and take a peek at. And I was just like, man, this guy gets it. He just gets it. And so, you know, I know we haven't chatted in a long time, but I will say a lot of your work has inspired me and, and, and to do the things that I'm doing today. A lot of it came from just.

the stuff that you put out and the stuff that that that you create. It's just so clean and it just breathes quality. I've just again, I don't want to I don't want you to get such a big head here, but you know, I just I love your work and I love the angle that you take things and you know, we need more of of Paul Pavone's in the world. Believe me when I tell you.

Paul Povolni (07:12.686)
Thank you, man. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (07:23.63)
Well, thank you, man. I appreciate that. Yeah, my head is big enough physically, and so don't need it bigger than it is. It's already hard finding hats. So, man, what I like to do with this podcast is I like to start with understanding people's origin stories because it's always fascinating to hear where somebody started and kind of the head smacks along the way that brought them to where they're at. And that inspires people.

When people see that, see, I've got a similar story or what happened to Henry or that person is similar to what I'm going through. so kind of share a little bit about the origin story of Henry and you can go as far back as you want, as you feel would be relevant to where you're at now.

Henry Kaminski Jr (08:10.84)
Sure. I mean, listen, we'll keep this business focused. But I will I will share with you that, you know, I'm a scrappy mofo and and nothing came necessarily easy for me. You know, listen, did I get a couple breaks here and there along the way? Absolutely. Am I grateful for those? Absolutely. But for the most part, I had to really scrap my way to where I'm at today. And, you know, I look back and I say, damn, you know,

Paul Povolni (08:19.886)
Hahaha

Henry Kaminski Jr (08:40.876)
I would have never thought in a million years I'd be doing what I'm doing today and be at the level of comfort and the level of, what's the word I'm looking for? Just gratitude. I say, you gotta take a step, you gotta take a second to just breathe and kind of just look back and reflect. I don't feel like a lot of people do that.

Paul Povolni (08:53.666)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:10.089)
Right, right.

Henry Kaminski Jr (09:10.136)
and it's constantly go, go, go, go. And that was me in my early 20s. Nothing was ever good enough. I wanted everything three times. I couldn't earn enough money. It was just go, go, go. And now as I get a little older, I start to realize maybe you should be grateful for some of the stuff you already have before you start.

Paul Povolni (09:28.105)
Hahaha.

Henry Kaminski Jr (09:36.052)
Quan at the next thing and that has grounded me and that comes with age, but got out of college 2002. Nobody was hiring 9 11 just pretty much happened. And, know, there was a hiring freeze. The world was in turmoil, you know.

Paul Povolni (09:52.321)
Right, right.

Henry Kaminski Jr (09:59.062)
People couldn't believe what had happened. So I'm fresh out of college and I'm trying to look for a job and I'm going on these silly interviews and nothing's transp, you know, nothing's happening. So again, I talked about Briggs before, you know, one of my uncles, he's a pretty successful guy in the Northern New Jersey area. He had some connections and I've asked him, you know, Hey, if I give you my resume, would you, would you pass it along? And he did. And so I happened to land this job at a local hospital and it was

Paul Povolni (10:09.603)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (10:29.236)
It was entry level. When I tell you entry level, I was checking insurances, cleaning coffee pots and you know, and it wasn't anything special. But I took advantage of the opportunities. The hospital paid for higher education. So I went and got my master's degree in business management. Once I got that, I started just again, trying to climb the corporate ladder there as high as I could.

Paul Povolni (10:33.454)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (10:56.748)
I got to assistant director of the sudden infant death syndrome center in the children's hospital. That kind of opened my eyes to marketing, branding, advertising, because I was responsible for creating fundraising events to raise money for sudden infant death syndrome awareness. And then also part of that money went to events that supported families that lost babies to sudden infant death syndrome.

Paul Povolni (11:05.58)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:26.775)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (11:26.912)
So I was able to, that was a, it was a pretty unique job. It was very sad, but very rewarding at the same time. But where I got bit by the design bug was every time I was putting an event together, I needed marketing materials. needed flyers. needed digital invites, all of that. And I had nobody to design it.

Paul Povolni (11:33.965)
Ryan.

Henry Kaminski Jr (11:48.736)
So one of my buddies who was in the nightlife industry at the time, because I'm not going to lie, maybe I was a little club head back in the day. You know, so so my friend introduced me to graphic design and Photoshop, and he did sponsor one of my events and did a lot of the graphic work. And so I'm sitting next to him, watching him in Photoshop just create.

something out of nothing. And I, that was it for me. So fast forward, I got my boss to buy me the Photoshop program and I started doing all the in-house design work for the events. Well, one thing leads to another. now my buddy, Jerry says to me, well, I don't want to do design anymore and I need somebody to do the design work. would you kind of take over my accounts? So he gave me a

Paul Povolni (12:16.578)
was it, you got it.

Henry Kaminski Jr (12:42.538)
an account here and there. Then I, he introduced me to one of his buddies who had a lot of accounts and said, listen, we'll give you a shot on one little project. See how you do. You know, I need speed and I need decent. I don't need perfect. need decent quicker. And I'll never forget this. said, the quicker I can start making money, the quicker I could give you more business. So I never forgot that. I always say to myself now, the quicker I can get you a project,

Paul Povolni (12:56.878)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (13:08.365)
What?

Henry Kaminski Jr (13:12.002)
done the quicker you could start making money with it. And I stuck by that. I stuck by that. And so next thing you know, Paul, I got every nightclub account in the state of New Jersey. And I don't know what to do with it. You know, I really don't know what to do with it. Now, listen, I'm 24 years old, I'm single. I don't really have anything else to do but to go to clubs and make money. So you know,

Paul Povolni (13:15.309)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (13:25.166)
Wow. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (13:39.256)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (13:40.162)
doing pulling 20 hour shifts designing was no big deal to me. You know, as long as I had my coffee or my Red Bull and a computer, I was ready to go. So fast forward, I meet my wife, you know, I start to get older, I start to get out of the industry a little bit. But the good news was, as I'm trying to kind of. Mature out of that world, I start picking up a lot of restaurant accounts.

Paul Povolni (13:45.134)
Yeah.

Ha

Paul Povolni (14:09.116)
well.

Henry Kaminski Jr (14:09.3)
And what happens is the liquor distributors, the beer distributors, even the food distributors, started seeing my work and I got very, very close with certain individuals in those sales roles and they took me to all their accounts. So now I start getting all these accounts in the restaurant space and

Had a great, great run until Hurricane Sandy hit Hurricane Sandy hits and wipes out two of my biggest distributor clients. I mean, they had products basically washing away two, three miles away from their facility. That's how banged up they were.

Paul Povolni (14:39.91)
wow.

Paul Povolni (14:55.234)
Wow. Wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (14:58.412)
When they restructured and reorganize and reopen, they said, you know, Henry, we love you to death. You've been amazing, but we're taking this all in house. Sayonara. So probably lost about $300,000 worth of business overnight. And I had no idea how to make that up. Okay. So now I'm, now I'm stuck, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm tapping into savings. I'm ripping through savings because mind you,

Paul Povolni (15:07.554)
Bye.

Paul Povolni (15:17.058)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (15:28.244)
At the time, I was into a lot of stuff that made that that was very expensive. So I had to have the shoes and the clothes and the cars and all that. And as things were dwindling, I didn't want to cut back on my lifestyle. And that started to really catch up to me. And finally, I go to my wife and I'm like, I'm broke. I

Paul Povolni (15:35.406)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:48.368)
Wow, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (15:55.864)
That's it. We're, know, I'm, I'm, out of water here or I'm out of gas. And so what happened was, uh, thank God for the old AMEX. You know, I had happened to bump into this internet marketer guy from. You know, he, you know, from, from the scene and he, I really connected with him at the time. I felt like he really was talking to me and, and, uh,

So I didn't want to wait and kind of cut that. You know, I wanted to cut corners. I didn't want to wait and kind of learn this internet marketing thing on my own. So I book one of these calls and I'm on this call with a sales person. It's a whole spiel, but fast forward, I spend $10,000 on this coaching program that I did not have at the time. and I jumped in just to get access to this guy.

Paul Povolni (16:33.741)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:47.572)
Wow. Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (16:54.328)
And next thing you know, this guy's turns around and says, you know, I love your story. You had me crying when you were explaining it to me. And there's a lot more details that went into it. I'm just trying to cut cut to the chase here for the show. And he goes, I want to hire you to rebrand me and my business that I'm kicking off. And some of you may know what this business is. It's a huge software company called ClickFunnels. So

Paul Povolni (17:21.814)
Mmm, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (17:23.3)
Russell Brunson is the guy that I'm talking about and he's kind of the co-founder this thing. And so I'm in this coaching program, but it's kind of paying for itself because now he's paying me to do a lot of the rebranding or just getting his branding in, in, in place. and, and I did that for five years and that's what got me out of my hole. And so.

Paul Povolni (17:46.103)
Wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (17:48.608)
Now the internet marketing space starts to get very polluted. I'll say that, right? You get a lot of fly by nights. You get a lot of people, you know, ripping people off and you know, the list goes on and on and that's not me. That I am not aligned with because, you know, I believe in if you work hard, you can play hard. And if you, if you do great work, you'll get rewarded with

Paul Povolni (17:54.828)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:03.169)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:07.32)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (18:17.792)
you know, great response, whether that's monetarily, maybe it's something else. But so I slowly start to remove myself from that space. And now COVID hits. It's right. And it's like, now what do I do? So I remember, you know, going through all of that, I was building these courses and I was really getting my feet wet with

Paul Povolni (18:20.47)
Right.

Paul Povolni (18:34.222)
Yeah, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (18:47.446)
you know, personal branding, you know, I was that was the brand doctor error, right? So I needed to kind of reinvent myself. So I'm talking to this mentor, this guy that I met in these coaching programs. And this guy's a big brand guy. I won't say his name. And he says, you got to really like reinvent yourself here because.

Paul Povolni (18:50.05)
That was your brand doctor era,

Paul Povolni (18:57.432)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (19:11.64)
You know, you have a lot of great things to say. You're great in front of the camera. You know, you you're really good at what you do. But if nobody knows who you are, I couldn't remember you. This is where I got bit by the branding bug. You know, you're it's it's all for nothing. And so he was like, you're so I was explaining to him my process and he goes, so it's kind of like a doctor. And I said, yeah, he said, so you're like a brand doctor. And that just stuck, man.

Paul Povolni (19:24.974)
You

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (19:40.066)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was awesome. Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (19:42.422)
So I said, I'm going to run with this. So came out with a podcast, but now getting back to COVID, a lot of people got laid off and my business was doing okay at the time. Nothing really to write home about. was making decent money and I was coasting, you will. Now COVID hits and everybody's upside down. So I really learned that in times of chaos like that, it's better to give than to take.

And then that sort of became my philosophy from there on out. And what I realized was I had all these resources that I was charging money for. I said, you know what? These people need, this is I said to myself. I said, these people need my information and my knowledge more than I do right now. So I went online and I did a live stream and I said,

Paul Povolni (20:33.026)
Yeah. Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (20:40.642)
Click on this link and you'll get access to all my stuff for free. Just take it. And if it helps you, please let me know. And if there's anything else I can do to help you, let me know. Sure enough, after hundreds of downloads, people start reaching out to me. You know, I've been at...

Paul Povolni (20:46.637)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (20:52.926)
Hahaha

Henry Kaminski Jr (21:05.836)
You know, I've been with this company for 20 years. They let me go. Now I have all this knowledge and I don't know what to do with it. I want to consult, but I don't know where to get started. So I did, I dive heavy into the personal brand space five years ago. Now it's like a big thing. You know, you, you, you see, you see Chris Doe, who's another amazing marketer and brander. And, he was a coach of mine for two and a half years. so me and him are very close and.

Paul Povolni (21:20.098)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:34.86)
Yeah, I love Chris. He's been on the podcast too, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (21:36.672)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what again, that's another reason what made me want to reach out to you and talk to you about the show, because I was listening to that. And and so he's big into purse. That's all he talks about right now. So here's me five years ago. Talk about personal branding and everybody's looking at me like I'm crazy. Like you are an egotistical maniac if you think I'm going to create a business and brand around myself. And I was like, but what what's your differentiator? Like what's what's your big?

Paul Povolni (21:57.518)
Ha

Henry Kaminski Jr (22:07.242)
difference between what you do and what this next person does. And they kind of get stumped and they they they give me these, you know, cookie cutter answers. And I'm like, no, guy or girl, it's you. Like you are the number one differentiator in what you do and nobody can replace you. Nobody can can be you. Right. And then they get this aha light bulb moment and they're like, OK, I get it now. But how do I get started? So during covid so

Paul Povolni (22:25.644)
Right.

Henry Kaminski Jr (22:36.376)
2020, 2021, 22, I go heavy into personal branding and I focus on personal brands. Well, I'm still, while I still have this love and passion for, for hospitality and restaurants and all of that, which I still held onto quite a few clients during that time. And I was helping some of my clients get through COVID through, you know, helping them with third party and helping them with online and, and, and e-commerce and things like that.

Paul Povolni (22:55.223)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (23:04.846)
Yeah, it was a tough time for hospitality during COVID. I mean, they were hit probably the hardest. Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (23:07.798)
was, I mean, I don't think they ever saw something like that in their life, you know? So, so I had a few clients on the side that I was still servicing, but I was real heavy into personal branding because I felt that's the industry that those are the people that need me right now. You know, I spent the last three, four years at the time really building myself up.

Paul Povolni (23:27.501)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (23:32.8)
and reinventing myself. I had quite a bit of experience in that space. So I said, you know what, I'm just going to focus on that. So, you know, the brand doctor error was really focused on, you know, subject matter experts that needed help branding themselves and standing out. So we put them through the process and it was awesome. Now COVID's kind of in our rear view. I got, you know, the world is starting to stand up again.

And I'm getting a little burnt out from the space. So. What twice, quite a few times, you know, quite quite a few times, and I've reinvested a lot of that money back into the business, back into myself. Did we go on a couple of nice vacations? Absolutely. But at the same time, I was getting spent and I said to myself, well, what's next? So get this.

Paul Povolni (24:05.88)
Yeah. Yeah. Now that space took you to seven figures, right?

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:22.222)
you

Paul Povolni (24:27.885)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (24:32.214)
One of my old clients, he's a celebrity chef out of Chicago, opened up a restaurant in New York and I lived 25 minutes away from the city. So he was had his grand opening and I happened to pop in there with my family invites me over and he was like, dude, I got this really cool concept, but I don't know how to market it. It's like a private dining experience. People pay him.

a high end membership fee to be in it. And, you know, I opened up my homes. I live in this big estate and we do a lot of the intimate dining in my house. And he's like, I don't know how to put it together. So I was like, I think I got, I think I got a couple ideas for that. Right. So

He flies home. I go home. We talk over the week and he says to me, um, all right, I'm to make you my partner on this deal and I'll give you, um, I'll give you 20 % of top line revenue. So whatever we make, you get 20 % right out of, right out of gate. So I said, you know, that's a risk because I'm putting a lot of the, the effort I'm putting a lot of the, you know, yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:49.708)
Right, sweat equity,

Henry Kaminski Jr (25:52.984)
So I showcased the whole thing to him. So it was basically a, application funnel, a landing page website that he would, he would promote it on his channel and his channels and people would come into this application and we would approve them. And then that's how they became members. Well, in about four and a half weeks, the six weeks of promoting

We do like four hundred and sixty eight thousand dollars, something like that. In in in freaking memberships. So now he's like. Yeah, you see why I wanted to do the. So I so, you know, we kind of we kind of gave each other the fist bump. And now this turns into Henry. Like what you did with that, you know, my hospitality group is growing and expanding and.

Paul Povolni (26:27.011)
Wow, wow

Henry Kaminski Jr (26:52.886)
you know, and I can't keep up with it myself. I need to start to build out my C-suite. So what's your thoughts on being chief marketing officer? And I was like, sounds freaking good timing to me. So, we do this announcement and shortly after I take the role as chief marketing officer, now at the, now at the time,

Paul Povolni (27:08.098)
Hahaha

Yeah, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (27:22.104)
We had about eight locations by the time two and a half years later, we, we doubled in size, doubled in size. Um, we had quick serve, you know, a dessert concept that went to seven locations in two years. We had, uh, uh, a casual dining that franchised out and we took that to three or four locations until we started to.

Paul Povolni (27:29.72)
Wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (27:47.446)
Now are these all in the New York area or are they national?

Henry Kaminski Jr (27:50.008)
No. So they were all, all over the country. So the quick serve, the, the, the dessert concept was scattered throughout the country. had Laguna Niguel, California, San Francisco. Uh, yeah, we, we, Kansas city. mean, we were kind of scattered all over. Um, and then the, the casual dining spot went to four locations and then we started dialing back that, that franchise a little bit just to get

You know, our ducks in the row. And then we had some signature. called them signature venues, which were higher end, upscale Italian steak houses. So there's a few of those down in Florida. There's one going up in Cleveland, I think, in the next few months. So very, very exciting time. So I really, really now come back into the hospitality and restaurant world. But.

in another stratosphere, you know, on a completely different level. And I didn't realize, you know, that that my passion was so strong for this for this world. Right. So our contracts. So so this was a contractual position. And so the first, you know, contract goes up and he's like, you know, you're doing a fantastic job, want to keep you around.

Paul Povolni (28:50.552)
Wow, yeah.

Paul Povolni (29:03.02)
Yeah, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (29:17.144)
So I signed another contract and then once that contract was up, I started to consider again, another reinvention of Mike myself. And so I never really got rid of at the time the company was called Unique Designs. I always had it because I do a lot of print work as well. I don't really talk about it as much as I should, but

Paul Povolni (29:33.388)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (29:45.654)
I do quite a bit of print work for restaurants. So whether it's menus or brochures or whatnot. So I always kept that business kind of humming in the background. But I said, you unique designs, you know, it's kind of everyone. And I really want to dial in to hospitality and restaurant. So I'm talking to one of my buddies and we're talking about, know, what I'm thinking of. And I was like, you know,

Paul Povolni (29:49.656)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (30:03.062)
Right.

Henry Kaminski Jr (30:14.836)
Farm to table was the big thing right now, you know, and it's like. How do I remix that somehow, you know, and we're chatting and the guys want to brand the table. And I was like, that. Has catchiness to it. Right, that that has that has some legs to stand up.

Paul Povolni (30:28.093)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (30:34.51)
Nice. Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (30:41.494)
And again, it's just like the brand doctors, like one of those like we're just having a conversation like this and something just pops like that. And so, Paul, you know me by now. Once I get an idea like that and I feel strongly about it, it's like pedal to the metal, baby. Yeah, like there's no overthinking. There's no it's like, all right.

Paul Povolni (30:57.934)
All systems go, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (31:05.537)
We're going to run this bad boy until I run into a brick wall and I got to figure out how to get through it or around it or over it. And so. So contracts coming up. I said, Fabio, you're an amazing individual, you know. People can't do what you do in two years in a lifetime, you know, it's been fun, but I. I want to, you know, spread my wings and get back to, know, what I was doing prior, but only in.

Paul Povolni (31:12.567)
Yeah, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (31:34.956)
this world. I promise you, I won't get in your way. But but I feel it's time for me to do my thing and to serve at a level that that I want to serve at. And he said, dude, you're bulletproof now, buddy. You know, he's like the three years that I, you know, ran you through the gamut with a gauntlet, I should say, like you're bulletproof now. So he was like, go for

And so he's still he's still a client of mine. And we you know, we do we serve his his venues print and I give him some ideas here and there. But, you know, they have a great you know, they're still evolving. They're still growing, which is fantastic. I love to see that. So here I am now with this company called Brand to Table that I'm just absolutely in love with and doing my best work since I think I started.

Paul Povolni (32:28.78)
Wow, wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (32:28.972)
because we have these conversations on occasion, you my wife and I, or even with my friends, and I tell them, like, I get so lost in the work. And like, I look at my watch and it's like six hours go by. And I feel like it was like six minutes, you know? Yeah, so it's like, I'm 44 years old and I truly feel, not that I didn't love the work, I just loved creating, I loved.

Paul Povolni (32:42.766)
Yeah, yeah

Right, because you're doing something you love, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (32:57.656)
creating something out of nothing. That's something that, that's what got me into the creative world. It was just taking something and making something out of nothing. And then I look at my.

Paul Povolni (32:59.437)
Right.

Paul Povolni (33:02.958)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (33:07.01)
Now where did that creativity come from? Like who in your family was creative? Was anybody?

Henry Kaminski Jr (33:11.572)
So it's so funny, nobody in my family is creative. You know what, but I will say I come on my mother's side, I come from there's a line, there's a bloodline of just entrepreneurs. So so my grandfather's brother comes over. I think he was born here, but but starts this construction company in 1945.

Paul Povolni (33:16.526)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (33:27.852)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (33:40.844)
And it's now what? 80 years old. 1945. Yeah, I think it. Yeah, it's it's an 80 year old company that's still thriving. And then I have a then my mother's brother. He gets into construction, but his uncle says you're not going to get in my way. So if I'm going to do buildings, you're going to do highways.

Paul Povolni (34:06.958)
Yeah, you're not getting in my space,

Henry Kaminski Jr (34:10.346)
Right. So he gets into he gets into heavy highway construction. So now I have this great uncle who creates this like dynasty, if you will, in real estate development. And then I have my my my mother's brother uncle who gets into construction and they be they both come become wildly successful in in the area. And I think

Paul Povolni (34:34.071)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (34:38.326)
It wasn't the creativity that bit me in the butt. It was the it was the success that I saw these two individuals creating from nothing. Like, you know, my great uncle Al came over here, you know, started with absolutely nothing in the Great Depression. Right. My uncle, they were my and my mom. They were poor as pork and bake.

Paul Povolni (34:51.959)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (35:01.154)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (35:07.196)
And my uncle just saw an opportunity and said, you know what? I'm going to give it a shot. And, know, I'm going to start with a wheelbarrow and some cement. Right. And I'm going to figure this thing out. And so that I was enamored with. Right. And so you mix that with my father, who was the hardest worker I've ever seen.

Paul Povolni (35:13.911)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (35:24.46)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (35:34.572)
you know, and in my life at that that proximity. So long story short, parents get divorced when I'm eight or 10 years old. Father takes responsibility of me. And in order to do so has to take on like four extra jobs. And so now I'm trying to come up in this world as a teenager in a very, very urban area.

And I'm trying to figure out my teenage years and my early, you know, you know, early 20s and all of that on my own. Meanwhile, you know, my father's trying to do his thing just to put food on the table. So I saw my uncle and my uncle's doing this like crazy, crazy level of success.

Paul Povolni (36:12.206)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (36:25.216)
I saw my father just scrappy as hell. He was a shop steward for UPS for 33 years. And that's what he did. And then he had to side hustles and things. So you take that work ethic and you take that. That that motivation or that ambition, right? And you put those two together and there was like no stopping me in my 20s, like, you so that's kind of and then I found something that I really love is so funny. I was listening to a podcast today.

Paul Povolni (36:42.391)
Right.

Paul Povolni (36:46.988)
Yeah, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (36:55.116)
And it's CEO of Denny's. She's this Italian woman. And she was describing her, you know, college years. And she was like, you know, I went in as a business major and came out with a sociology degree. Right. And I was like, I went in as a business major and saw my first economics class and an accounting and was like, no freaking way. But I just love to talk. I love people and.

Paul Povolni (37:08.816)
haha

Henry Kaminski Jr (37:24.416)
And so somebody was like, you know, there's, there's a liberal arts degree. It's called communications. It seems kind of broad, but you know, you'd be perfect for it. And I just excelled. I was never afraid to talk in front of people. Like all that came very, very easy for me. And so I just ran with it. And so I ripped through college because it was like, other than the couple of classes that that sucked, you know, most of them were right up my alley. So

Paul Povolni (37:42.178)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:46.328)
Something you loved, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (37:53.237)
It just listening to her speak, I'm like, you know, I wasn't the only one that thought he was going one direction and completely turned and went another.

Paul Povolni (38:01.87)
Well, it's amazing how that one, one suggestion from that one person literally changed the trajectory of your life. You know, I mean, it's, it's pretty crazy. And that's, that's, you know, those moments when you, when you look at people's history and those, those head smack moments is sometimes it is just the conversation. It's just somebody saying something. It's just a TV show. Like I've interviewed somebody. can't remember who it was.

Henry Kaminski Jr (38:08.726)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:27.874)
that they got inspired to be in marketing and advertising because of bewitched because the guy from bewitched was in advertising, you know, and he was like, that got my attention because I hadn't thought about it, you know? And so it's amazing how those kinds of moments just changed the trajectory of your life. And you mentioned, you know, you met Russell and that kind of changed your whole world because you started working with funnels and then you met Chris Doe and he kind of changed the direction of some of your stuff. And then somebody mentioned brand doctor and then

Henry Kaminski Jr (38:39.884)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:57.09)
That kind of changed your whole thing. And now you're back into the hospitality space that you kind of circle back to. And that was one of the early things that you started with. And it's just amazing. And so now that you're working in hospitality, you know, you'd mentioned your friend, Fabio, it? Yeah. And so, you know, you helped him grow, you know, all these different businesses and spread out and everything, launching back into your own space with brand to table. You know, what are some of the things that you've learned when it comes to

Henry Kaminski Jr (39:12.514)
Fabio Viviani.

Paul Povolni (39:26.915)
branding a hospitality business that most people within the space make mistakes with.

Henry Kaminski Jr (39:33.976)
Yeah, that's a, that's such a great question. And the good news is I'm noticing a lot of hospitality brands realizing this now that brand strategy is probably the most monumental and foundational process you should go through before launching. And what was happening, what I saw when I came into

Fabio's hospitality group was they didn't understand what brand strategy was. So they overlooked it. And then when I came in and explained to them, I'll never forget this. We're talking about this, this casual dining concept, and I'm on a call with all the principles. I said, cool name, but what's this restaurant's point of view? And they go, what's

that mean and I I I said, what you know, if I went into your restaurant and I went into a Chili's like what the hell's the difference right? Well, there's this and there's that and there's now that's that's not what I'm talking about. It's how does this restaurant see the world? Right. It's not about the different types of food because they started saying, well, their food is more like this. Now, that's not what I'm talking about. It's

Paul Povolni (40:35.554)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (41:03.562)
If your vash restaurant could speak to somebody, like how would it sound? How would it make the person feel? You know, you're no spring chicken to this stuff, right? They had no concept of that whatsoever. So. I tell them, listen, if we really want to scale this, this this concept to 10, 12, 15 locations and then perhaps sell it.

Paul Povolni (41:14.018)
Yeah, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (41:31.372)
We need to consider brand strategy. And so we hired a firm out of, I it was Maryland and they came in and I was very impressed because you know, I've done brand strategy for years. didn't want to take that whole responsibility on myself as CMO, you know, CMO is like, you find the right people to execute, right? I knew my role. So you find this firm, they do a hell of a job.

Paul Povolni (41:33.944)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (41:53.44)
Right, right. Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (42:01.174)
rebranding this thing and hit the ground running and it was fantastic. So to answer your question, it's really understanding the power of brand strategy, brand positioning, and going through that process with a professional, not downloading a course or not, you know, thinking you're going to fill out a 10 page PDF and that's going to be your brand strategy. It's really sitting down with a, with a firm of professionals that know what they're doing.

Paul Povolni (42:18.068)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (42:31.224)
that have done it, you know, over and over again. And if you can find somebody that specializes in hospitality, restaurants, food, and Bev, even better. You know, one thing that Chris Doe kind of explained to me, and there's two sides to this coin, but specialization, especially in this time of age is so important. And I believe it's it's so much more valued.

Paul Povolni (42:41.635)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (43:00.546)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (43:00.606)
than the generalist, and he was the one that kind of really firm that up for me because I was like, I always struggled with. Nitching down because I was like, I'm missing out on all this other stuff, right? And you realize I realized very, quickly that when you become a specialist, you get to demand a higher price point, the higher rate, because that's all you do. Right.

Paul Povolni (43:03.063)
Right.

Paul Povolni (43:12.686)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (43:26.936)
Yeah. Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (43:28.952)
And you go, you go super deep in that. And I think people really see that and they really value that. And we had some pretty big clients over the past few months, just for them, knowing that like, this is my cup of tea, I breathe, eat, sleep this stuff, you know? And so that was that. So brand strategy, I think, is certainly it. And I'm not just saying that because we're branding guys. saying it because

Paul Povolni (43:47.543)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (43:55.64)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (43:57.174)
When we went through that process, the principles realized that there was a completely no, there was another level of understanding and there was a hole and they and I unlock that for them. And then this firm comes in and really opened up the doors and they were like,

Paul Povolni (44:12.014)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (44:18.52)
Do you remember what you came up with? The statement? know it's probably been a while. Do you remember what that statement was after you asked that question?

Henry Kaminski Jr (44:23.808)
It was a years ago. Well, here's I'll tell you. the name of the real quick and I'll be brief because we could go down a rabbit hole and be another hour. You know, what we've what we realized was the name of this restaurant was the name of a fictitious person who like traveled this world and became this worldly person who brought all these food recipes back into this restaurant. And that's how we came up with the that was the story, right? But it wasn't enough.

Paul Povolni (44:32.189)
Hahaha

Henry Kaminski Jr (44:51.532)
We needed to create a real person out of this guy. Right. And so I was like, well, is this like what kind of person is he? Is he this like happy go lucky guy or is he a badass? Because I see you have like motorcycles in the freaking restaurant. Like, so they were like, we want to make him a badass. He's always been a badass. And I'm like, all right, well, let's let's paint this guy. And so we went in and basically to tone a voice that we created.

Paul Povolni (45:02.22)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (45:06.783)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (45:24.65)
OK, the tone of voice that we created was this bad ass dude. And like when we would respond to comments on Instagram, they were they were like Wendy's like we we we didn't really care. Yeah, there was there was quite a bit of edge and that really strengthened the positioning and the differentiation of the brand. So, you know, we had a lot of fun with it.

Paul Povolni (45:32.152)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (45:37.428)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Had some attitude, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (45:52.482)
We had a lot of fun with it. We went with the name and it was called the Legendary Kitchen. It was the name of the guy and it was like the Legendary Kitchen. And it was really cool.

It just goes to show like there's people think branding is like colors and logo and like fonts and stuff. And it's there's so much more to it, right?

Paul Povolni (46:17.58)
right.

Yeah. Well, and I think you're right in what you shared with, you know, coming up even with the personality of how your brand talks and behaves. And a lot of people don't think about that as a brand is considering that, especially, you know, if it's your personal brand, I guess you can have a alter ego, but you know, when you're talking a restaurant or a company or an organization or any kind of an entity is deciding on what kind of a personality it's going to have. How does it respond?

Henry Kaminski Jr (46:47.224)
down.

Paul Povolni (46:48.962)
to tweets or exes, how does it respond on Instagram, DMs? How does it, you know, what is, and that dictates imagery and the look and feel, you know, but when you don't define that, then you kind of, you can get fractured pretty quickly.

Henry Kaminski Jr (46:59.116)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (47:04.395)
Yeah. Well, and here's another thing that I want to kind of pivot into, you know, with the time we have remaining is the restaurant industry is very archaic when it comes to tech and like marketing tools and resources. So one thing I have an advantage, I think, over some other marketers in the space is I come from this digital marketing background. And when I say I went deep in it, I, you know, I went five, six years deep into this. So I figured out

how we can leverage click funnels, how we can leverage a platform like open table, Rezzi, seven rooms and use their marketing functionality to really create something that is used primarily in like tech spaces. Right. So that was one of the things I did over in Fabio land. I always call it Fabio land, you know, was

Paul Povolni (47:55.778)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (48:02.111)
Ha ha.

Henry Kaminski Jr (48:04.376)
You know, he was using Open Table. It was a basic subscription. There was real no way to track anything. It was very hard to send out broadcasts. So I'm doing my research and I find seven rooms through a big hospitality group in Miami. So I tell the director of ops guy, we got to get on the phone with these guys and see if we can get this.

platform integrated into our restaurant. So they came, they came on the call. We sit down with them. We, so I get seven rooms into all the locations. And now they asked me, Hey, would you mind being a beta tester for our SMS text that's coming out our email marketing that's coming out? And I was like, you know, there's a bear shit in the woods. Of course I'd be interested, you know, so I became like,

Paul Povolni (48:53.628)
Hahaha.

Henry Kaminski Jr (48:58.722)
their fan favorite when it came to testing different functionality. Yeah. So, so now I bring in SMS text marketing, I bring in email marketing and now, know, chat GPT starts to take off and I start thinking, all right, well, how can I leverage chat GPT? So quick story there. I start realizing like, how do we generate leads for

Paul Povolni (49:05.144)
Features, yeah, yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (49:27.872)
you know, our venues, how do we start, you know, creating lists so we can market later on? And so I'm working with this this this fairly large off premise catering company. They do big events in the city. Eight hundred fifty thousand people, gala's and one of their biggest pain points that their clients have is menu creation.

They because you could go a thousand different ways on a menu. Now you're theming out this event and now the menu has to be specific. Right. So I realize, all right, I can I can teach chat GPT everything there is to know about this brand's menu. This brand's branding, positioning, all that stuff. So I'm going to create a custom.

GPT engine that helps their prospects curate menus. So I come up with this thing called the menu matchmaker and I build this custom GPT out. And now what they do, how to generate leads is we use many chat, which you're familiar with. You DM them menu and

Paul Povolni (50:32.526)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (50:46.51)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (50:52.244)
It captures that person's email address and then brings them to this custom GPT, which has prompts there to help them and guide them. Or you could type in, I have a hundred person party. It's a seven to 70th birthday retire or it's a it's a retirement party. I need a gluten free and vegan option. They type all this into the GPT, they go. And the whole thing is curated by Chachi Pute.

Paul Povolni (51:20.715)
Wow. Wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (51:22.176)
And then the call to action at the end is, the next step to get this thing going is to book a consult with us. And so that's all pre-programmed. So we were, we were actually doing some content around it today. That's why it's top of mind. And, we were live demonstrating this in the video and people were going, you know, people were going nuts. Like there was kind of like a little small live audience going on.

Paul Povolni (51:29.998)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:37.016)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:49.88)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (51:50.038)
They just mostly the people that were in the office and they were like, that is freaking brilliant. And I was like, well, I started to create a few for my own, too, you for for brand to table, too. So I have some really cool custom GPT's that help my clients. So a lot of times restaurants don't know how to choose the right influencer for their place to get more exposure and awareness. So I have an influencer outreach assistant, which basically.

Paul Povolni (51:54.702)
you

Henry Kaminski Jr (52:19.2)
You type in you DM me influencer on Instagram, and it'll bring you to the cheapy tea that will help you find the perfect influencer for your restaurant and actually how to reach out to them and secure the deal. Right. So there's a few there's I did that one. I have a I have a menu and profit analyzer so you can upload your menu and it'll tell you how profitable it is and what you should 86 or.

Paul Povolni (52:35.415)
Wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (52:48.022)
maybe add. What other ones do I have? I have so it's the influencer one, the profit Max Mark, the marketing audit one is it comes in handy. So you basically you type in you DM me audit on Instagram and you'll get this GPT and then it basically will prompt you a couple of questions and it'll tell you where your deficiencies are in your marketing. And then I have a social media generator, which

Paul Povolni (52:49.442)
Right.

Paul Povolni (53:13.526)
Wow. Wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (53:17.56)
a lot of my clients, they suffer from, I have a lot of ideas. I don't know how to lay them all out and categorize and actually execute them. Or I have no ideas at all and I need help with ideation. So if you type in, what's, what is it? I think it's so I should know this, right? I forget what the keyword is. You know what, we'll put it into notes, but

Paul Povolni (53:43.726)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (53:44.242)
that GPT will basically give you, however far out content calendar with phenomenal content ideas for your restaurant based on some of the information you, it asks you to, submit. So, you know, I've really taken this AI and GPT to another level for lead generation, but also to help my clients really Excel because nobody.

Paul Povolni (54:02.12)
Wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (54:13.035)
is doing it in this space.

Paul Povolni (54:14.752)
Right. And so, you know, for restaurants that are, you know, still struggling after COVID, cause you know, as we, as we shared that they got hit pretty hard, what are you finding has been the best marketing tool to get butts in seats? Cause that's what it's all about. Right. Is they want to, they need butts in seats. So what, know, out of your experience and what you've tested and tried and, and, you know, nixed and then kept, have you, what are you finding is the best way to get attention and get people through the door?

Henry Kaminski Jr (54:44.546)
hands down, hands down, SMS text marketing. It is. Undeniably the best way to get butts in seats and drive revenue. So so going back to seven rooms real quick. So once we rolled out SMS text marketing to all the locations, what I love about seven rooms and now open tables really starting to pick up the

their, their, their pace a little bit and given seven rooms to run for their money. But now door dash just bought seven rooms. So they might, they might just go to the, go to the moon. But so hear me out. Seven rooms has everything trackable. So you can send out a text message blast and know how many covers came in from it, how many reservations were booked and how much revenue was generated by that text.

Paul Povolni (55:21.208)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (55:42.71)
So we rolled out SMS texts probably February of last year. And by the end of this end of the year, based on all the SMS text campaigns, I generated like $1.3 million just in SMS in revenue, just off of my SMS text campaigns. So, you know, we've done email email works great too, but

Paul Povolni (56:05.88)
Wow. Wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (56:11.426)
people trash it. People don't open it up for a week. They missed the promotion or the feature, whatever SMS text when that sucker hits their message. It's like, I got to open it. Who is this? You know, who is this from? You know, I don't recognize that.

Paul Povolni (56:23.234)
Now, how does it track, I receive the text, then I go to the restaurant. How does it know that I came to the restaurant as a result of that text?

Henry Kaminski Jr (56:33.272)
So there's a, there's a bitly link in the text message. So they click it to book the reservation. Now the reservation tracks their spend. So once that reservation closes, we know every item that they bought, how much they spent. Um, and now we're tracking them because these seven rooms and open table, their CRM. Their CRM. So

Paul Povolni (56:44.503)
Yeah, wow.

Paul Povolni (57:00.493)
Yeah, wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (57:03.254)
So now we can, you know, what I love about open table is like now you can, you could, you could send before you didn't have this capability, but now you could send individual email campaigns. not quite up on the SMS tech stuff yet, which they better get there fast because you know, it's almost like old at this point, you know, but SMS tax is huge, man. Huge.

Paul Povolni (57:26.478)
Wow. Wow. Now with, you with you mentioned chat GPT and AI and you mentioned, you know, things like DoorDash, what are you seeing as the next big thing when it comes to marketing in hospitality? Do you see something coming down the road?

Henry Kaminski Jr (57:41.238)
I do. I see a lot of subscription based stuff. So, you know, this is nothing. New, but I think. A lot more brands are picking up on the trend of subscription based, you know, functionality and also. I think we're going through an interesting time right now because people are

Paul Povolni (57:45.644)
Wow.

Henry Kaminski Jr (58:11.104)
Kind of a little tight with their with their money. But if the value is there, they'll spend it sort of thing. Right. So right now, I think we're caught between this weird place of I want to spend if it's worth it. The values there, right? And experience is everything nowadays in restaurants before experience wasn't a thing because there wasn't that many restaurants. Now there's one on every other block.

Paul Povolni (58:17.336)
Right.

Paul Povolni (58:27.48)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (58:39.116)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (58:41.016)
You know, and it's you go down the street around here, there's 17 Italian restaurants to choose from. How the hell do you choose them? Right. So the experience is everything. So, you know, we did. We also have been doing a lot of like wine dinners and tastings and, you know, exclusive experiences we partner with. We're going to do one with McCallan next month. We did one with Stag's Leap Wine last week.

Paul Povolni (58:46.692)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (59:10.608)
for with a client and it's like, you know, those experience, they pay 150 bucks a head. You get a four course or five course meal. You get these beautiful wines. Like that's it. And then these membership programs, like the one before I left Fabio land, I went to, I helped stand up this wine locker program for the Italian steak house down there where they sign up as a subscriber. You get X amount of wines. You get

VIP treatment when it comes to booking your reservation, things like that. And just people want to feel special. Right. And, you know, if you get hospitality, that should come pretty easy to you. But not a of people, not a of people. It doesn't come to a lot of people. That's why there's like goats in the industry, like Danny Mayer, where like his big thing is like, I can't teach hospitality. You have to be.

Paul Povolni (59:46.67)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:00:01.495)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:00:05.933)
Yeah.

Henry Kaminski Jr (01:00:09.997)
It's kind of have to it has to be like in your soul. I could teach everything else. I could teach you the business. I could teach you everything else. But like if if you're not kind, if you're not.

Paul Povolni (01:00:13.108)
Right, right, right.

Henry Kaminski Jr (01:00:22.856)
anticipating needs, that kind of thing. You know, it's it's tough. It's tough to find that kind of that kind of team member to bring on.

Paul Povolni (01:00:28.727)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:00:33.496)
Well, and your food has got to be so, so, so, so good that people don't care. Otherwise they're not going to come back, you know? And so, yeah, yeah. So, so good food will only take you so far, but, hospitality and the experience that people have is what's going to keep them coming back. I think people almost come back for less than less than stellar food sooner than they will come back for good food and bad service. You know, they'll, they'll, they'll come back for.

Henry Kaminski Jr (01:00:40.92)
Yeah. There's 17 other places to choose from, right?

Henry Kaminski Jr (01:00:52.418)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:01:02.584)
for great service and great food, but awesome food. If the hospitality is bad, they won't come back. Henry, this has been amazing. I know you've got to go and thank you so much for your time and appreciate your man and proud of you and all that you're doing. And next time I'm in the area, we'll have to go grab a coffee or break some bread somewhere.

Henry Kaminski Jr (01:01:10.143)
Exactly.

Henry Kaminski Jr (01:01:25.992)
I'll definitely take you to one of my spots for sure. You will not. You will not leave New Jersey hungry. I can promise you that.

Paul Povolni (01:01:28.966)
All right,

Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate you, man. This has been great catching up and look forward to seeing you and chatting again sometime soon. Have a good one,

Henry Kaminski Jr (01:01:42.636)
Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Appreciate you, dude.