A Not-So-Lazy Makeover

Project: Lazy Bear Website Refresh

Lazy Bear is a truly unique restaurant, winning two Michelin stars with the unconventional format of a throwback dinner party. It's communal, engaging, boisterous, and unbelievably delicious. Every part of the experience is carefully orchestrated to charm and delight guests.

Except the website. Emails too. Both are important stops (and highly trafficked points) of the customer journey, and neither embodied the brand or matched the high standards of the in-person experience.

Lazy Bear had a new brand guide that had been attempted to be applied to the website, but it needed much improvement.

My role

Designer, copywriter, project manager

Worked with web design agency to code the new site

Challenges

• Avoid the typical restaurant website design, do something unique

• Improve the UX (layout, navigation, hierarchy)

• Convey the charm, exclusivity, and mystery of Lazy Bear

• Clarify the story and messaging, editing down copy on all pages and re-writing FAQ

• Create an email template that matches the new website

• Utilize more appropriate graphic elements

Results

• +150% Time on Page for key pages

• -50% Bounce Rate sitewide

• Tickets page became #2 most visited page

• 99% sell-out rate for nightly dinners, 100% sell-out of special events

The old website

The new website (link to live site)

Expanding the "field guide" aesthetic that runs through other elements of the Lazy Bear experience. Much more prominent brand red. Using filtered Audubon images on the background of each page. Drastically reducing the text on home page. Adding multiple pages and a navigation menu. Little touch: menu hamburger icon is actually logs and fire.

Tickets page

Rebranded email template, compared to old email design