Multi-Location Fine-Dining Restaurant Site Handles 600+ Reservations Weekly

The group operated 3 premium fine-dining outlets across the city, each running its own reservation system. Customers calling for a table were often put on hold for 20–30 minutes as staff juggled multiple phone lines, leading to 35% of incoming calls going unanswered entirely.

There was no cross-location inventory visibility — if Outlet A was fully booked, staff had no real-time way to check availability at Outlet B and suggest an alternative. Private event enquiries were scribbled on paper and frequently lost, and the menu PDFs on the old website required a developer every time the chef changed a dish.

We delivered a complete digital front-of-house platform:

1. Cinematic Next.js website: Ambient video hero section showcasing the dining experience, with each outlet functioning as its own micro-site — separate location pages with unique ambience imagery, Google Maps integration, operating hours, and parking info.
2. Real-time booking engine: A 7shifts-powered table reservation system with live cross-location inventory, time-slot capacity controls, automated SMS confirmations, and deposit capture for peak-hour bookings to reduce no-shows.
3. Sanity CMS for menus & events: The F&B team updates food & wine menus, chef's specials, and seasonal tasting menus directly in Sanity — no developer required. Private event RFP forms capture party size, budget, dietary needs, and preferred dates.
4. WhatsApp order-ahead & guest preferences: WhatsApp Business API integration lets regular guests pre-order tasting menus before arrival. A guest preference store remembers VIP dietary restrictions, preferred tables, and anniversary notes across all 3 outlets.

• 600+ reservations/week across 3 outlets, up from 380/week at launch
• 47% repeat visit rate driven by preference-memory personalisation and WhatsApp follow-ups
• 18% more tracked walk-ins attributed to improved Google Maps presence and location-page SEO
• 30% fewer no-shows after introducing Stripe deposit capture for weekend and holiday slots
• +24% FOH productivity as front-of-house staff spend less time on the phone and more time with guests

If we rebuilt this today, we'd add an AI-powered waitlist module that automatically texts customers when a table opens up and lets them confirm via a single tap — this would capture the 15–20% of walk-ins that currently leave when there's a 45-minute wait. We'd also integrate with the POS system to pull average cover data and dynamically adjust booking slot lengths, which would reduce the 8–10% table-overlap rate the restaurants still experience on peak nights.