Veteran music industry executive, restaurateur & owner of Brooklyn Chophouse
Robert “Don Pooh” Cummins is a trailblazer and visionary of Barbadian heritage. As a veteran music industry executive, he worked closely with hip hop superstars, Jay-Z, and The Notorious BIG, discovered Foxy Brown who he managed and guided to becoming one of hip hop’s multi-platinum superstars, and helped form “The Firm” (NAS, AZ, Cormega and Foxy Brown) whose album he co-executive produced.
In 1999, Robert accepted the esteemed position of Executive Vice President at MCA Records where one of his greatest accomplishments was personally overseeing and co-executive producing Mary J. Blige’s Grammy Award-winning “No More Drama” album. Throughout the past two decades, he has continued to work with his close friend Mary J. Blige in various capacities.
After researching the hospitality industry, Robert decided to diversify his assets by entering the restaurant business as a franchisee in 2003. He secured a multi-unit development deal for Papa Johns and opened seven franchise locations in NYC, in addition to two Checkers franchises. After selling the Papa Johns franchise, Robert secured another huge franchise development deal to exclusively build and operate several Ihop restaurants in Brooklyn. His first IHOP, which opened in downtown Brooklyn in December 2007, ranked in the top five for sales during its first year out of more than 1400 IHOP restaurants in the United States. Robert has since added 3 more ihop units to his portfolio of restaurants in nyc.
Ever the visionary entrepreneur, Robert and his partner opened the chic hotspot, Brooklyn Chop House (“BCH”) in downtown Manhattan in 2018 and its massive flagship location in Times Square in 2022. In its short existence, BCH has already been named one of the seven best steakhouses in NYC by Newsweek. In 2022, the newest location popped up in Abu Dhabi and will now be opening permanently on Dec 6th 2024 at the W hotel in Abu Dhabi with plans underway for additional locations in Miami, Las Vegas and London.
Further expanding their reach, BCH Grocer partnered with Patti Labelle launching customer favorites to the freezer aisles in over 1200 Walmart nationwide in 2022 and are now in Stew Leonard’s. ShopRite’s and fairways with Costco’s, Wegmans and Target stores coming this fall with the launch of his franchisee model Brooklyn Dumpling Shop (“BDS”) in 2021, Robert added franchisor to his current list of accomplishments. This new 24-hour fast-casual restaurant specializes in offering unique flavored dumplings via automat technology. BDS is rapidly expanding with its corporate location and one franchise in New York, another franchise in New Jersey, and 120 locations scheduled in the next five years. In addition, Robert has several real estate development projects in progress. Robert as grown from a multi unit franchisee to a franchisor that has franchisees that has signed development deals to open Brooklyn Dumpling shops across every major city in the U.S. with 11 Dumpling shops currently open this brand is on its way to being a household name
Despite his success as a music executive, restaurateur, franchise expert, and real estate developer, one of Robert’s proudest accomplishments is the ability to give back to his community through youth mentorship, business coaching, and other philanthropic activity.
Regarding his perseverance, Robert “Don Pooh” Cummins says, “We keep going! We try again, we lose again, we try again…You don’t get here by winning all the time. No one won all the time.”
