The brief
Ciao Italia is an Italian restaurant on Somerset Street West in Ottawa. The old WordPress site scored 54 on mobile PageSpeed, weighed 6.6 MB and didn't look like the dining room. They needed a faster site, a way to book a table and a menu people can read on a phone.
Audit first
I ran PageSpeed on the old site: a mobile score of 54, a 6.6 MB page, and about 9.8 s to show the main content on a slow phone. Most of that weight was uncompressed photos and CSS and JavaScript that blocked the page from showing.
A site that feels like the dining room
Dark charcoal with gold, set in Cormorant Garamond, with the restaurant's real dishes, hours and address. The opening hours sit in a bar right under the hero, because that's the first thing people look for.
Booking that follows the restaurant's hours
The booking page only offers times when the restaurant is open: closed Tuesdays, Saturday from 4 PM, other days from 5 PM, in 15-minute slots with 90-minute seatings. The prototype behind it also assigns real tables, joins 2-tops for bigger parties, tells groups of 7 or more to call, and gives the owner an iPad view of the night.
Menu and Google listing
A 6-page printed menu (cover plus 5 pages) with halal markers on every pork dish. And a Google Business Profile kit with the description, hours, sample captions, review replies and the same name, address and phone everywhere.
Launch and follow-up
The new site went live on July 19, 2026. A friend handled the launch on the live domain. In August I audited the live site for search: the full menu is still a PDF, the homepage title runs to 123 characters, and the hours don't match other listings. Those fixes are next.
Deliverables
- Website redesign and front-end build
- Reservation page that follows the opening hours
- Booking prototype with an owner iPad view
- 6-page printed menu
- Google Business Profile and social kit
- PageSpeed and SEO audits
Results
- Mobile performance 86–91 in Lighthouse on the new site (Oct 21, 2026), up from 54 on PageSpeed for the old WordPress site (Jun 12, 2026)
- Home page weight down from 6.6 MB to 775 KB
- Live at ciao-italia.pages.dev since July 19, 2026