As Greg Flynn, a multi-concept franchisee with 1,200 locations, said

for a restaurant business, daily revenue is like oxygen for the human body. If that gets cut off, you can’t believe how quickly the system fails.

When the pandemic hit, restaurant revenue across the board basically dried up overnight.  Many single unit restaurants shuttered, not able to operate with little to no sales.  Others, like our client Uncle Julio’s Restaurant Group, were faced with incredibly tough decisions about how to move forward and fight for survival. They needed the ability to be as flexible as possible since the status of each restaurant changed not just daily but literally hourly during the height of the pandemic.  At first they temporarily closed most of their locations.  Over time, they were able to re-open in phases. Offering to-go only, or outdoor patio-only dining in compliance with local or state regulations. Given the different nature and status of dining at each location, we needed to provide both a clear way to display this on their website, and the ability to be able to adjust hourly and daily, as state by state restrictions changed.

Fortunately, we had rebuilt and relaunched Uncle Julio’s website in 2018. We used best-in-class technology and development practices for the utmost flexibility to get the right message to the right audience at the right time.  The site was instrumental in helping them fight for survival during the pandemic with easy to execute customizations and changes by individual location.  Due to the way we’d built the site, we were able to quickly develop an additional custom solution for the individual location pages that allowed us to change the status of the restaurant at the click of a button to display whether the location was Temporarily Closed, To-Go Only, Patio Dining Only, or Dine-In. The ability to change the status quickly was paramount to ensuring guests had the most up-to-date information each day.  

As the pandemic went on, but started to improve, restrictions were lifted and guests were allowed to go into restaurants again.  Our Summer’s Back campaign showed how Uncle Julio’s was more than ready to provide their guests with fresh-out-of-the-kitchen flavors and unforgettable dining experiences that they’ve sorely missed, for an extraordinary return to dining out.  We used a combination of features across the website (on the homepage, menu, and location pages), as well as a custom landing page to communicate the fresh flavors Uncle Julio’s was offering to kick off summer. The homepage used a hero header banner so everyone entering the site knew that Summer was officially back. The menu features highlighted the light and refreshing key menu items to satisfy your Summer cravings such as the Summer Shrimp Fajitas, Fresh Margarita of the Month, and for those who like it hot… the Honey Habanero Shrimp. These features sat at the top of the online menus to get guests excited about the new featured items. On the individual location pages, we provided a spot to tease the fresh summer flavors as well with a full width image banner enticing users to check out the Summer Shrimp Fajitas & Ritas. All of these features drove guests to the custom landing page to explore more details on the scratch-made shrimp and margaritas and show the variety of options from shrimp bacon-wrapped to super spicy shrimp.

During the height of the pandemic, to minimize complexity and focus on to-go and 3rd party delivery, Uncle Julio’s removed one of their most popular menu items, The Chocolate Piñata.  In July 2021 with the return of dining-in, came the Smashing Return of the Chocolate Piñata.  Gone were the days of drive-by birthdays, and skipping out on life’s special moments. The return of the Chocolate Piñata was the chance to celebrate everything that was missed, and everything that was returning: summer, a sense of normalcy, gatherings, and much more. Celebrations were finally back in full swing with the one and only Chocolate Piñata.

To announce the epic return of the famous Chocolate Piñata, we used a combination of features across the website (on the homepage, menu, and location pages), that drove to a custom landing page communicating the details of this unique dessert. The Chocolate Piñata was being released in phases to different groupings of restaurants, so we wanted to make sure people from some areas weren’t being notified of the return until it was back in their location. Therefore, we utilized our customizations feature we built for the website, to only serve up the Chocolate Piñata message to people in the locations where it rolled out. For example, when it rolled out to DFW locations, users in those areas specifically would be served up the Chocolate Piñata Smashing Return launch message in the hero banner to get people excited to order it when visiting. We also added another visual banner feature on the individual location page as well, linking to the new landing page so we have plenty of messaging presence across the site. All other locations that did not have the Chocolate Piñata yet were served a teaser message letting them know when it would be returning to their area. Our custom landing page showed a looping video of our best “smashes,” bright and bold imagery of the Chocolate Piñata ingredients, and a section to learn about your very own “smash style”. Are you a Ninja, Lumberjack, Influencer, or Relayer? Whatever your style, this one-of-a-kind dessert is smashable, shareable, and delicious! 

Whether times are “normal” or unprecedented, having the ability to quickly adapt to whatever circumstances we and our client are in is critical. If you’re a restaurant group who needs a partner that has the agility and speed to keep up with the needs of your business, feel free to give us a shout.