Rick Stein at Coogee Beach.
A complete digital rebuild for one of Sydney's most loved beachside venues. From a tired template to a booking-driven flagship for the brand.
Rick Stein at Coogee Beach had been operating with a template Squarespace site since opening — functional, but no longer doing the job. The venue's reputation had outgrown its digital presence. Bookings were happening despite the site, not because of it.
The brief was clear: a digital flagship that captured the warmth of the room, the credibility of the Stein name, and the practical needs of a 200-cover seafood restaurant doing two services a day. The site had to convert — not just impress.
- Tired template, slow load times, generic feel
- Booking flow buried two clicks deep
- No SEO foundation — ranking poorly for "best seafood Coogee"
- Mobile experience felt like an afterthought
- No way for press / events to find the right contact
Half a day on site at the venue. Watching the lunch service, talking to the maitre d', understanding where the bookings actually came from and what customers asked before reserving. Most of the answers weren't on the existing website.
The approach: rebuild from the ground up on Squarespace 7.1, with three priorities — (1) booking flow needs to be one click from anywhere, (2) the room needs to feel like the room, (3) practical info (parking, set menus, group dining) needs to be one click deep, not five.
Numbers that matter.
The work has to do work. Twelve weeks post-launch, the metrics tell the story.
— Online bookings
+82%
vs same period prior year
— Page load speed
1.4s
down from 4.8s on mobile
— Search ranking
#1
"best seafood Coogee" on Google
James understood our world from the first conversation. The site he built feels like the room — and bookings tell the story.
[Client representative] · Rick Stein at Coogee Beach