Client
Pierponts at Union Station
Dates
May 2020 - June 2020
Services
Visual Design & Front-End Development
Project Overview
Pierpont's is Kansas City's premier fresh seafood and steak restaurant. Nestled inside of historically preserved Union Station it is an architectural beauty! Its turn of the century decor provides an elegant backdrop for casual to elegant dining. It is a real treat to the eyes and to the taste buds. A perfect setting for celebrating a birthday, entertaining clients at happy hour, or spending a romantic evening with your sweetheart. Pierpont's serves a flawless fine dining experience.
Pierpont's website however did not reflect the Pierpont's unique beauty and charm. it was not was not parallel experience. The site was created long ago and had grown quite stale and outdated over time. I was contacted to revitalize the experience with a new site, provide functional improvements and ultimately get more people in the door. This was an exciting project for me as it was clearly a remarkable place and a unique opportunity.
With the homepage I had many things I had identified with the owners and and management that we wanted to make sure was showcased. I felt it was highly important to get across the grander of the building, the massive ceilings, the amazing stone works in the walls, the old world marble and the many unique features like the 30-foot-tall mahogany bar. We wanted to showcase savoury and delicious gourmet dishes, hint at the exceptional drink selection, as well as elevate the gift cards and highlight the resturant's weekly events.
Ordering & Reservation Improvements
Menus were previously pretty hard to read. Sections easily blended into one another and there were scripts fonts used on every item which honestly were too fancy to read. I decided to give it some breathing room and make it more vertical. I made more clear distinctive sections and got rid of all the outdated script fonts. I changed the reservation system to use the third party service, OpenTable, as it was more roboust on the backend, had more options with the aesthetic and providing a simpler better experience for the user. With the site's most important call-to-action, Making Reservations, I wanted to make sure it was accessible in many places. It is the main Call-to-Action at the start and the bottom of the homepage. I also created a menu item for it and it's own page, so to not be missed. The page also allowed ability to cross sell other services, that occasionally got overlooked such as gift cards and event notification signups.
Special Events and Catering
Pierpont's can accommodate both large and small private events. They had very lavish private rooms to accommodate large parties of up to 80 guests. Previously this was information that guests could only find out if they had visted a resturant and picked up a flyer while at the hostess desk. With the redesign, I felt it was must we get this out in front of customers; further maximizing Pierponts revenue potential by showcasing the beauty and uniqueness of these rooms. Catering was also a very similar situation, so we included details and a form so customers could easily get more detailed information directly from a experienced party planner. Lastly, we included a page, that was dynamically driven from a simple text file so managment could easily update the site and users could stay informed of upcoming events. Prior events where handled only in small alerts sections on the homepage so this new page allowed for additional information and marketing.
In Conclusion
Overall the redesign of Pierpont's was a success! It was delievered on time as promised in time for the large events coming to Kansas City. The owners and workers were happy with the site and felt it reflected the amazing Pierpont's experience they all worked so hard to develop. Though tracking anayltics we can could additional business flowed into the restaurant right away. We heard from managers and the hosts that the use of OpenTable was a great improvement. They even saw an increase on many of the items we worked to unbury such as gift cards purchases. Emails signup for special promotions increased and special events attendance was also way up making way for additional events. Overall it was great experience for me as well, as restaurants were fun new frontier for me. I was also excited to accept and additional job offered to me to resign the owner's other resturant, the Hereford House.