Casa Ondina. Taquería & natural-wine bar · Highland Park, Los Angeles
A taquería site that sends regulars to pickup instead of the delivery apps.
Concept buildCasa Ondina is a fictional business. Here’s what we’d build for a business like yours.
The problem · sound familiar?
Our regulars were ordering through the apps.
The delivery apps take 15–30% of every order. Our site was a PDF menu and a social link. So even the regulars who live three blocks away ordered through the app.
What we’d build
A sign-painted identity and a site built for pickup.
We drew the identity from the hand-painted signs along York Blvd. The menu is real text that staff can edit and search engines can read. Order pickup is the first button on every page and opens the restaurant’s own ordering tool. Private events get a form that asks for the date, headcount and budget up front.
Designed to
- Make ordering direct the first thing a regular sees, on every page
- Let staff change a price or mark a dish sold out from a phone
- Give the events manager the date, headcount and budget before the first reply
Creative direction
Where the look comes from.
The look comes from the hand-painted storefront signs along York Blvd: heavy block letters with a split shade, arched window lettering and scalloped awning edges. Chile, nopal and masa do the work that photos usually do, and a painted wave carries the name.
- Chile
#A3321E - Nopal
#2F4A3A - Masa
#F6E9D2 - Cempasúchil
#F2B23A - Comal
#231B15
- DisplayBricolage Grotesque ExtraBold
Tacos de guisado
- TextIowan Old Style / Palatino
Hoy en la olla. Order ahead, pick up at the window.
VoiceWarm and short, like the specials board: what is cooking, what it costs, when it is ready.
Up close
Three details that do the work.
01
A menu in real text, not a PDF
Staff update dishes, prices and sold-out items from a phone in a minute. Search engines can read every guisado on the page.
02
Order pickup comes first, on every page
The button sits ahead of the menu everywhere on the site. It opens the restaurant’s own ordering tool, with no delivery app in between.
03
Event inquiries that arrive with the details
The private-events form asks for the date, headcount and budget per guest first. The manager can answer with a real quote on the first reply.