// Concept projectWork · Hospitality & venues

The Copper House

A concept build for a fictional independent restaurant + private-hire venue that needs bookings, live menus and event enquiries in one calm site.

// The brief

What we set out to solve

The Copper House is an invented venue we sketched to show how an independent restaurant with a private-hire side could stop losing enquiries to a Squarespace site with no live menu and a booking widget that fights the design. The brief: warm, editorial, and unmistakably its own place.

// Approach

How we'd build it

Menus as first-class content

Menus live in the CMS as structured items (course, price, allergens, dietary tags) — so the kitchen updates them in five minutes, they render as proper on-page HTML for SEO, and 'sample menu' pages don't drift from what's actually being served.

Two booking paths, one design language

A restaurant booking flow (covers + time) and an events enquiry flow (date + guest count + style) side by side, both themed into the site rather than a jarring third-party iframe.

Events as a proper section

Weddings, wakes, corporate dinners each get their own page with pricing bands, sample menus, capacity, and a photograph-led hero — replacing the single 'Private Hire' PDF most venues rely on.

// Scope

What's in a build like this

This is what the delivered project would include end-to-end under the Pixel Ten package.

✓7-page site with CMS-driven menus
✓OpenTable / SevenRooms integration
✓Events + private-hire enquiry flow
✓Photography direction brief
✓Local SEO + Google Business Profile
✓10 working-day delivery target

// Search intent

What the audience is actually Googling

Hospitality searches split three ways: 'restaurants near me' (walk-in intent), '[cuisine] [town]' (planned intent), and 'wedding venue [area] / private dining [city]' (events intent). One site has to answer all three without making any of them feel secondary.

// Representative queries this build targets

restaurants [town]private dining [city]wedding venue [area]Sunday roast [town]wake venue near mecorporate dinner venue [region]

// Why this build stands out

What separates it from a template hospitality & venues site

Live menus in the CMS

Menus are structured data — items, allergens, prices — not a PDF. The kitchen updates in minutes, and every menu page ranks for the dishes on it.

Events pages that actually sell

Separate pages for weddings, wakes, corporate and private dining with capacity, sample menus and pricing bands — replacing the generic 'Private Hire, get in touch' dead-end.

Bookings that don't break the design

Reservation and enquiry flows themed into the site's own design system, not a bolted-on third-party widget.

// FAQ

Questions we get about builds like this

Which reservation platforms does this integrate with?+

OpenTable, SevenRooms, ResDiary and Tock are all supported. We keep your existing platform unless there's a strong reason to switch.

Do we need new photography?+

Not to launch — the design works with a smaller image set and a phased approach. We include a photography brief so any future shoot slots straight into the layouts.

Can front-of-house staff update the menus?+

Yes — the CMS is designed for a manager to update items, prices and allergens without a developer. Changes go live instantly and cache clears automatically.

Would this work for a pub or a small hotel?+

Yes — the architecture is designed for hospitality venues generally. Add rooms and it scales into Pixel Twenty; keep it food + events and Pixel Ten is the fit.

// Want one like this?