Congratulations to South End Pizza and Seafood in Laconia, NH on the launch of their newly designed WordPress website for the Pizza Shop.
A couple of months ago, the owner Micah Shoemaker and his wife Kristyn contacted me about a new website.
On the public-facing side of the website, they wanted
- a modern, refreshed look, updated with their new colors and photos
- an easy-to-navigate food menu so that customers can quickly find the items they want to order.
- the full menu to display on a single page with the ability to filter and drill down into food categories and single menu items
- the ability for customers to rate menu items and leave comments about their experiences
- the ability to display customers’ ratings and comments next to menu items
On the backend, they wanted the ability to update the menu items on demand, when and where they wanted.
They provided me with the new logo, new photos and images of the food items, and some content.
- Naturally, I created the website using WordPress.
- I downloaded and tested several “restaurant” menu display and ordering plugins. None had the functionality that Micah and Kristyn wanted, and they all had functionality that they did not care about. So, I loaded the WooCommerce plugin and used the hooks with my PHP programming in functions.php file to customize the display to meet their requirements.
- I also reviewed “rating” plugins. They all were more involved and had more functionality than my clients were looking for. So… I wrote a custom food rating PHP program, and integrated that with WooCommerce via the functions.php file.
- Some menu items are available in one size (and fit WooCommerce’s simple product set up and processing). Others are available in multiple sizes (and fit WooCommerce’s variable product set up and processing). The menu items that are available in multiple sizes, display with a price range (i.e. $14.99 – $19.99) so that customers will be aware that there are options associated with this menu item that impact the price.
- Some menu items have Add-On Options like adding chicken to a salad, and substituting onion rings for fries. Some add-ons are free and others carry an extra charge. To let the customer know the cost of the add-on item and the total cost (pre NH sales tax) for their chosen food item, the price on the menu item’s detail page changes as they select different add-on options.
- Defining add-ons (options, descriptions, and prices) and connecting them to the appropriate menu items are accomplished via a YITH plugin. Three other Add-On plugins were tested before deciding to use the YITH WooCommerce Product Add-Ons & Extra Options plugin, and the YITH plugin was chosen because it provided the functionality and had the most user friendly process and interface (for non-techs like my clients to be able to add them on their own) AND was easy to style to fit the website design.
- Even though a menu item’s detail page shows the the price of the item with all its options, it is not the final price as the NH Room and Meals tax needs to be applied.
- Since ordering online is not yet available, WooCommerce’s Add to Cart buttons were removed.
- So, from a WooCommerce stand point, there are Simple Products and Variable Products. The actual price of a menu item is influenced by the base price plus any extra charge for choosing a non-free Attribute plus any other up charge for selecting an Add-On like a side salad with my Italian dinner.
Before and After Images of the South End Pizza & Seafood Home Page
Snapshot of a Menu Item (a WooCommerce simple product with Add-Ons)
Below is a snapshot of a detail page for a menu item that has add-ons; a South End favorite, the Chicken Tenders dinner. The base price is listed just below the menu item name and the add-ons are listed below the dinner’s description. The options indicate the additional cost, if there is any. The total pre-tax price a customer will pay displays next to Total that is found below the add-ons.
Also seen in the image, are the customer ratings and reviews. They display in FIFO order, and below the reviews is a summary of customers’ votes ( xx Best Thing Ever! and xx I liked it!)
Navigating the Food Menu
The left side of the Full Menu page features links to each food category, followed by a list of the most popular foods (bacon, buffalo sauce, burger…veggies, etc). These two work together in a “this AND that” fashion.
For example, if Italian Dinners is the food category selected and you tick “seafood” in the selections below, Italian Dinners AND all seafood options will display (not just Italian Dinners that have seafood in them).
And if those filters are not enough, there is an “open” search box underneath so that a customer can find what they want very quickly and easily.
For example, if they want to find all menu items that include peanut butter, they would tick Full Menu in the first section, then enter “peanut butter” in the search box. (Oh, yes. They serve Peanut Butter pie!)
Now that the website is launched, what’s there to do?
Now that the website is launched, we’ll continue adding photos to menu items and keeping the menu up to date.
We’ll balance that work with focusing on SEO and getting found on the Internet. The SEO work includes embellishing each menu item page so that Google understands what is being offered and to whom, so that it will recommend South End Pizza and Seafood high in the search results’ listings.
We’ll be reviewing the feedback provided to us by direct customers, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and, the Google Business Profile in order to guide us in prioritizing upcoming tasks.
I invite you to congratulate Micah and Kristyn and let them know how happy you are for them! Hop on over to South End Pizza and Seafood and tell them what you like best.
~~~
If you are in need of WooCommerce customizations or custom PHP programming for a WordPress website, give me a call. 508-480-8833. It’s what I do…Here’s a sampling of custom PHP programming projects I have completed in the past.