The Problem
Higeralde Sagarlekua is a traditional Basque cider house (a sidrería) in Hondarribia, Gipuzkoa: txotx straight from the barrel, local produce, a terrace view guests rave about in the reviews, and 4.9 stars on Google to show for it.
Online, it barely existed. No website. Discovery happened through the Google profile and word of mouth. That works until a French family across the border, or an English-speaking tourist planning a San Sebastián trip, tries to find out what a sidrería even is, what's on the menu, or how to book. Hondarribia sits on the French border and lives off exactly that mixed crowd. Every one of those searches ended on someone else's website.
Behind the counter, reservations lived in a paper book. Phone bookings, walk-in promises, and notes scribbled during service: one physical object, one place, one person able to read it at a time.
What I Built
A Website in the Three Languages Guests Actually Speak
The site runs in Spanish, French, and English. Someone searching from Bayonne lands on the French pages, someone from Madrid on the Spanish ones, and Google understands all three as one site. For a restaurant twenty minutes from the border, French isn't a courtesy translation. It's a market.
The content was shaped around the restaurant's identity rather than a template. The carta page tells the house philosophy (the txotx ritual, the cider-making, the produce) instead of listing prices, a deliberate choice for a place that sells an experience. A trilingual FAQ answers what tourists really ask ("what is txotx?", "how does a sidrería menu work?"), and a blog does the local SEO work (in plain words: getting Google to show the restaurant to people searching nearby): the first post already lifted its target search from buried on page 2 into the top half of page 1, bringing the site's first clicks on that search.
Real Reviews, Not Testimonial Theatre
Instead of invented quotes or a paid review widget, the homepage shows genuine Google reviews, word for word: a curated set in Spanish, French, and English, backed by the profile's real figures. The stars Google shows next to the site in search results match what a guest finds when they check the profile. No tricks.
I actually scrapped a fancier automated version of this that would have cost the restaurant a monthly fee for almost nothing in return. Honest and cheap beat automated and fragile.
Fast, Clean, and Nothing in the Way
The site loads fast, is built for phones first, and greets visitors with the terrace view instead of a cookie banner, because it was built to collect only what it needs. Guests' data stays in Europe.
The Paperless Reservation Book
The second half of the project retired the paper book. A private agenda for the team, connected live to the website's booking form, so an online reservation appears on the floor team's phones instantly, next to the ones they enter by hand from phone calls.
It's designed for a busy floor, used from a phone:
- A today view that picks the current service automatically and shows the diners booked at a glance, with a strip for fresh web bookings to review
- Web bookings confirm instantly for the guest; if capacity is tight, the review flow reminds staff to call, with tap-to-call built in
- Push notifications the moment a new booking lands
- Day-of tools: arrived and no-show marking, special out-of-hours bookings, and a history that can never be lost the way a torn page can
- The public form asks for name and phone only: no guest emails, no accounts, the minimum data that does the job
The agenda later learned to protect the room itself: the website stops offering times when a service is full, large groups are routed to a phone call, and staff count walk-ins with one tap so the site always knows how full the dining room really is.
What This Means If It Were Your Business
- You own everything from day one. The domain sits in the owner's own account, not mine. If we stopped working together tomorrow, the restaurant keeps its name, its site, and its data. That's a policy, not an accident.
- Launch doesn't wait for perfect. Real photos were weeks away (the owner runs a restaurant, not a photo studio), so the site launched structure-first and the photos were swapped in the day they arrived. You don't need anything ready to start.
- No invented anything. Real reviews, real figures, legal pages that describe what the site actually does. For a business whose whole brand is authenticity, the website shouldn't be the least honest thing about it.
- Clear pricing. Monthly plans from 249€ cover building the site, keeping it alive, and improving it, plus a one-time setup we agree on before anything starts.
And the proof is public: see it live at higeraldesagarlekua.com.
What Worked, What Didn't
The website proved itself when it mattered. In late July a social-media wave sent thousands of new people looking for the restaurant in a single weekend. The site was there to catch it: 36 online reservations in three days, against a previous baseline of under one per day. Online bookings have settled at around four a day since, and the digital agenda now holds more than 230 reservations.
The paper book didn't disappear by magic. A digital agenda only counts what's in it, so the design puts one-tap tools in front of staff (like the walk-in counter) instead of asking them to change how they work mid-service. Software that fights the floor team loses.
A website is not the whole traffic story. For a local restaurant, the Google profile is still the single biggest discovery lever. The website gives those searches a destination and gives Google confidence, but I'll tell you openly which lever we're pulling and why, rather than overselling any single piece.
The Result
- A trilingual website live on the restaurant's own domain, first version on screen within a week of starting
- Google search results showing the restaurant's real star rating next to the site
- More than 230 reservations managed in the digital agenda, readable by the whole team from any phone
- 36 online reservations confirmed in three days when a viral moment hit, holding at around four a day since (from under one a day before)
- Blog content already climbing Google for the searches that bring guests in
How Working With Me Looks
- A free 15-minute call. I look at your Google profile and your current presence, and tell you honestly whether a website would even help.
- Structure first. The site goes up without waiting for perfect photos or final texts; we refine it live.
- You own it all. Domain, site, and data in your name from day one.
The specifics here are a cider house, but the pattern fits any local business that's excellent offline and invisible online: a site in the languages your guests speak, honesty as a design principle, and internal tools that remove paper instead of adding software.
Great at what you do, but nowhere to be found online? Let's talk for 15 minutes and I'll tell you honestly what would move the needle. You can also see what I build.
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