Vapiano

Overview

Vapiano Australia required a refreshed website experience that could better support multiple restaurant locations while simplifying content management for the internal team.

Working alongside ACG Creative, who led the design and project direction, my role was to develop the website and deliver the underlying systems that powered location-specific content, menus, bookings and customer experiences across the national restaurant network.

Challenge

Managing content across multiple restaurant locations introduced several complexities.

Menus varied between venues, pricing differed by location, events were often venue-specific and customers needed a simple way to access the information relevant to their nearest restaurant.

The challenge was creating a seamless experience for customers while ensuring the Vapiano team could efficiently manage content without duplicating information across multiple websites.

Approach

The website was developed as a central platform that dynamically adapted content based on the customer’s selected location.

Key functionality included:

• Custom menu management system.
• Food and beverage menu item content types.
• Location-based pricing structures.
• Persistent location selection using sessions and cookies.
• Venue-specific events and promotions.
• OpenTable booking system integration.
• Interactive restaurant locator using Google Maps APIs.
• Flexible content management for ongoing marketing updates.

A location selection system was implemented to allow visitors to choose their preferred restaurant, with that choice remembered throughout their browsing experience. This ensured menus, pricing, events and booking options remained relevant without requiring repeated selections.

Result

The result was a significantly more personalised customer experience that connected users with the information most relevant to their chosen venue.

The custom content structure also streamlined administration for the Vapiano team, allowing menus, pricing and event information to be managed efficiently through a single platform while maintaining consistency across all locations.

Why this project was interesting

Multi-location websites often appear straightforward from the front end, but the complexity sits behind the scenes.

What made this project particularly rewarding was designing systems that could personalise content based on a customer’s location while keeping the content management experience simple for the business.

Balancing flexibility, ease of administration and user experience required careful planning, particularly around location-based pricing, dynamic content delivery and third-party integrations. The result was a platform that felt tailored to each restaurant while remaining easy to manage as a national brand.