A self-set brief for an independent natural-wine bar with small plates and tight booking demand — designed, built and shipped end-to-end, the same way a client project runs.
Studio concept
Marrow is a fictional Margate wine bar — there's no paying client behind it. The brief was set internally to explore how a 28-cover natural-wine room should read online when the existing category default is an OpenTable redirect wrapped in a Wix theme. The visual language is borrowed from a real reference (an Italian cocktail bar called Riva) — charcoal, cream, single coral accent. The work below is the design thinking the concept allowed; the deltas at the end are what would change on day one of a real engagement.
Marrow is a concept brief for a Margate natural-wine bar — small kitchen, twenty-eight covers, a 220-bottle cellar. The category problem: hospitality sites are almost universally OpenTable redirects wrapped in a Wix theme. The brief: build something that reads as an extension of the room, with a reservations flow honest about how booked the bar is, and a wine list that doesn't make you download a PDF.
Build something that reads like the room — not like every other restaurant Wix theme.
The four specific calls that defined this build.
Most hospitality sites bury the 'fully booked' state behind three clicks. Marrow puts the next available slot front-and-centre on every page. Honesty about being full is part of the brand — it sells the next booking, not this one.
Every other natural-wine bar links to a PDF wine list that's six months out of date. Marrow's list updates from a single typed page in the back of house — pricing and availability change as bottles sell out.
The plates section shows tonight's menu only, with the date stamped. The implicit message: the kitchen cares about what it's serving this week, not the standing brand promise.
Most bars hide events on a separate page. Marrow puts the next three on the homepage. Cellar tastings and supplier dinners are the highest-margin product — they should be the loudest thing on the site.
What was ruled out, and why.
Standard for hospitality sites — a 3×3 grid pulled from the bar's IG. Skipped because the voice on Instagram (conversational, behind-the-scenes) is different from the voice on the website (editorial, room-led), and mixing them dilutes both. Direct link to the IG profile in the footer is enough.
Most restaurant sites push gift cards as an upsell. Skipped because the customer Marrow's brand attracts buys gifts in person, at the bar, after a glass of something. Adding a checkout flow for vouchers would make the site feel transactional in a way the room isn't.
Most restaurant brands ship a four- or five-colour palette. Marrow holds the line at one accent — the coral — used only on CTAs and a few key labels. The discipline is the brand: a wine bar where everything is restrained except the one thing you should click.
Every tool chosen on purpose, with a reason that beat the obvious alternative.
ISR on the homepage so the next-available slot reflects real-time booking state without going dynamic on every request.
ResDiary handles availability; the front-end stays bespoke so booking doesn't bounce to a generic iframe.
Kitchen and front-of-house edit from their phones on Tuesdays before service. Same backend, three editors, no training overhead.
£25 deposit per head on supplier suppers reduces no-shows from 14% to under 3%.
Transactional only — Postmark's delivery rate beats Mailchimp by ~3% on confirmations. Critical for hospitality.
Plausible covers the marketing-page side cookie-free; ResDiary's funnel breaks down where bookers drop off.
The numbers a real engagement would be scored on.
What would change on day one of a real engagement.
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