Clean & Cosy Web Design for an Established Bistro

Crofters are one of Essex’s oldest independently owned restaurants and wine bars. They use only fresh local produce to create a menu that is a bit of everything – dishes are rustic modern European in character and the whole place feels somewhere between old English wine bar and French brasserie, but with a twist.

Their previous website and newsletters were non-responsive, old-fashioned and out of date, so our biggest focus was to bring the new site inline with best responsive practice, and ensure that their customers could use the site to view the menu and make bookings easily, across all devices, whilst publishing stylish, clean newsletters that were attractive and enjoyable to read.

We went for a much lighter approach with the new site, dropping the dark grey background of the old site in favour of a new clean and clear white. We’ve used their existing branding but incorporated new typefaces to make the pages as accessible and easy to read as possible, but whilst still keeping the high quality, successful feel of the establishment. So as not to lose the sense of atmosphere that the restaurant evokes, we’ve included numerous photographs and videos, as well as a new menu area that includes lunch, parties and events as well as drinks and champagnes. The website visits and statistics are currently more than 100% higher than others in their industry benchmark, something we’re very proud of.

For the weekly newsletters, we’ve designed a consistent, on-brand template so that customers instantly recognise that it’s Crofters. We produced weekly images and photographs to make the mailouts colourful and eye-catching, and interesting to read. The branding, colours and typefaces from the website are used to keep a coherent consistency across all assets. We’re very happy with the open and click through rates of the weekly newsletters; we’re receiving consistently higher CTR than Crofters’s competitors, especially when promoting new events and offers.

If you’re looking for mailing list design and website design and development in the restaurant industry, we’d love to hear from you.