Dockside Waterfront Grill is a restaurant located at historic Fisherman’s Warf in Venice, Florida. If you are coming by boat then look for marker 4. Visit Their Website. One of six restaurants owned by the Gecko’s Group, this one has a distinct old Florida tiki vibe. For years the restaurant didn’t have its own web presence, with only a page on the Gecko’s website to call home. The company wanted to change that so they called 3 Knight communications to get the ball rolling. Tracy, owner of 3 Knight, called Creative Sarasota for photography, website design, and WordPress management.

Objectives and Challenge

The objectives for this project were pretty straight forward. The team wanted a fairly basic site that does what websites are supposed to do: Inform and Inspire. The primary goals included:

• Highlight the food (obviously).
• Inspire people with the sunset view and Florida tiki vibe.
• Display the many awards and reviews the restaurant has won.
• Provide basic information about the operation like hours and events.

That is about it. As with all of our designs, the Dockside Waterfront Grill website needed to accommodate all devices. In addition to device scalability, the Gecko’s team also wanted some accessibility solutions for those with disabilities, so we did that, too.

Project Components & Highlights for Dockside Waterfront Grill

• Website Design & Layout
• Responsive, Mobile Design
• Accessibility Considerations
• Custom Photography
• Simple Events List
• Sunset Time
• Yelp Waitlist
• Reviews

Custom Photography

You can’t use stock photography for a restaurant like this. Thus, Max did a lot food shots for the site. They also wanted staged dining shots, so we got a few employees to sit down and pose for the photo shoot. While we were there, we got a ton of detail photographs of the environment. These closeups provided great images for advertising banners and such.

Sunset Time

Sunset dinner is a big thing in Florida, so it was important to promote the sunset time. We used a great little weather plugin that grabs the sunrise and sunset time along with the current temperature. The plugin displays that information along with a little animated graphic the depicts the current weather condition. This is a great little addition that inspires people to come out for dinner.

Simple Events List

The restaurant has live music 3 or 4 days a week. But, there really wasn’t a need for a full blown calendar. So, we did a little searching and found a very simple event LIST plugin. While it doesn’t offer a lot of configuration options, you really don’t need it to. Just enter the event name, date, location (optional), description, and an image. The plugin lays it out as a list. No messy calendar. Perfect. If you would like to discuss your website design, photography, graphic design, or WordPress needs with Creative Sarasota, please reach out to us using our Contact Form.