Ember Group operated four distinct restaurant concepts across Toronto, each with its own outdated website, separate booking systems, and no shared marketing infrastructure. They were spending $1,800/month maintaining four separate websites and had no way to cross-promote between concepts. Reservation abandonment was high because the booking flow sent customers off-site to OpenTable, losing 58% of potential bookings at that step.
The Approach
Rather than building four separate sites, we designed a single WordPress multi-concept platform where each restaurant had its own visual identity while sharing backend infrastructure, staff management tools, and a unified analytics dashboard. The key architectural decision was keeping OpenTable as the reservations backend (their staff were trained on it) while building a custom frontend integration that kept the user journey entirely on-site.
The Solution
We built a custom WordPress theme with ACF-driven menus, event management, and chef profile systems. The OpenTable integration was done through their iFrame API with custom CSS to match each restaurant’s visual identity seamlessly. We created a gifting system allowing customers to purchase gift experiences across all four venues, which immediately became their highest-converting product.
Results
Reservation abandonment dropped from 58% to 12% by keeping the booking flow on-site. Website maintenance costs reduced from $1,800/month to $380/month. The cross-venue gift experience product generated $42,000 in its first 3 months.
“We went from four mediocre websites to one exceptional digital presence. The booking integration alone justified the entire project cost in the first two months. Fasih’s approach was methodical, communicative, and genuinely business-focused.”
— David Lau, Director of Operations, Ember Group