Opening a restaurant means bringing a lot of moving parts together
When Jamie Rogers prepared to open Thirty Three by the Sea at Bolberry Down in 2025, the website had several jobs from the outset. It needed to announce a new name, accommodate menus that were still taking shape, connect booking and voucher systems, give events a home and help people unfamiliar with the location understand what sort of restaurant they would find there.
Jamie already had an established reputation through Twenty Seven and Smoking Lobster. Thirty Three needed to benefit from that connection while standing as a restaurant in its own right, with a more relaxed coastal setting and an offer that could change through the day and across the seasons.
Cornerstone brought the website, functionality, photography, aerial imagery, hosting and ongoing support together. The result was one place from which the restaurant could launch, then continue developing after opening day.
What the project included
- Website planning, design and build
- A dedicated content system for restaurant menus
- Menu archive and individual menu layouts
- OpenTable booking links
- Online gift vouchers and Stripe payments
- Mailing-list integration
- Modern Events Calendar
- Professional food, interior and exterior photography
- Aerial photography of the Bolberry Down location
- Managed hosting, maintenance and ongoing website updates
Giving a new restaurant a clear place in the group
Thirty Three was the next restaurant venture from Jamie Rogers, following Twenty Seven and Smoking Lobster. Familiarity with Jamie’s food and reputation was valuable, but the new restaurant could not rely on people already knowing the story.
The site gives Thirty Three its own identity and explains the things that matter before a visit: the food, the atmosphere, the headland location and the different ways to eat there. Connections to Jamie’s other restaurants are present without making Thirty Three feel like a copy of what came before.
A new restaurant should feel established from the day it opens.
The website gave Thirty Three a clear identity, while carrying forward the reputation Jamie had already built in South Devon.
Menus built as website content, not uploaded paperwork
A restaurant menu is not a static brochure. It changes by season, service and occasion, and each version still needs to be easy to find and comfortable to read on a phone.
Cornerstone built a dedicated menu custom post type, with an archive that brings the current menus together and individual layouts for each one. À la carte, Sunday lunch, children’s, sandwiches and even the dog’s menu can follow the same visual system without being squeezed into a single unwieldy page.
The structure also gives future menu changes somewhere predictable to go. The restaurant can alter what it serves without the website gradually becoming a collection of disconnected PDFs and temporary pages.
The menu changes. The website structure does not have to.
A dedicated menu system keeps changing information organised, readable and consistent across the site.
Bringing the practical parts of a visit into one place
Someone choosing a restaurant may arrive looking for a table, a menu, an event or a gift. The website has to accommodate all of those intentions without making the underlying systems the visitor’s problem.
Table booking connects to OpenTable. Gift vouchers can be selected and paid for online through Stripe. Mailchimp supports the mailing list, while Modern Events Calendar gives special events a consistent place on the site. Contact details, directions, opening information and social links complete the information a visitor may need.
Those parts have different jobs, but they should feel like one Thirty Three website rather than a collection of separate services.
Different reasons for visiting, one clear route through the website.
Booking, vouchers, events and practical information are brought together without adding friction for the customer.
Photography planned for the website it needed to serve
The setting is part of Thirty Three’s appeal. The restaurant sits on Bolberry Down, with the coast and open sky around it, but prospective diners also need to see the room and the food that will arrive at the table.
Cornerstone photographed the dishes, restaurant interior and exterior, then added aerial images to establish the wider location. Because the photography and website were planned together, the shoot could produce the variety of images needed across the homepage, menus, gallery and supporting pages.
The photographs do not have to compensate for vague copy. They show the food, room and setting directly, helping people picture the visit before they book.
The food and the location both help someone choose the restaurant.
One coordinated shoot supplied food, interior, exterior and aerial imagery for use throughout the site.
The launch was the beginning of the website relationship
Restaurant websites change because the businesses behind them change. Since launch, Cornerstone has continued to support Thirty Three with menu updates, events, seasonal offers, gift vouchers and new areas such as weddings.
The same relationship covers hosting, maintenance and the practical work needed when a new idea has to become part of the site. Jamie and his team have somewhere to take the next request, without starting again with somebody new each time the business changes.
The Lobster House followed later, extending Cornerstone’s work with Jamie’s growing restaurant group beyond Thirty Three.
A hospitality website is never finished for long.
Ongoing support allows the site to change with the menus, events and opportunities that follow opening day.
Ready for opening day, and useful afterwards
Thirty Three launched with one website for its menus, booking, vouchers, events and practical visitor information. Its bespoke menu structure and coordinated photography gave the restaurant a site built around day-to-day use, rather than a launch page that would quickly become outdated.
Cornerstone continues to provide hosting, maintenance and website support as Thirty Three and Jamie Rogers’ wider restaurant group develop.