SoBha Restaurant

Summary

Restaurant website and table booking for SoBha, a Turkish and Mediterranean restaurant in Highgate, London, built with Laravel, Blade and MySQL to showcase the menu and take reservations.

The problem

SoBha had no website. It was found through Uber Eats and Just Eat, which take a commission on every order, and it had no way to take a table booking except by phone, no record of its own customers, and nowhere to show its food. It needed its own site with a menu and gallery and direct table reservations.

My role

Led the architecture and build via SETS Tech. I designed the architecture and data model, planned the work, built the core of the system myself and guided the in-house and freelance developers working with me. Alongside the site, SETS Tech runs the restaurant's social media, and I produce its video content.

What I built

• Owned the end-to-end web build, from page structure and visual direction through implementation and launch.
• Built the Blade front end and connected dynamic content areas for menu, gallery and brand storytelling.
• Built the table reservation system (Laravel) so guests book directly on the restaurant's own website at sobharestaurant.co.uk/reservation.
• Optimised the responsive experience for diners browsing primarily on mobile devices.

Architecture

One Laravel 13 application on PHP 8.3: Blade pages styled with Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js, built with Vite, with a MySQL database and SMTP email. - The reservation form saves each booking with the guest's details, date, time, party size, seating and occasion. - Guests get a "booking received" email and a "booking confirmed" email; the team gets an alert for every new booking. - The admin covers bookings, the gallery, site images, reviews and visitor analytics. - Images are stored on the server. Homepage photos are lazy-loaded, and the hero video has a poster image.

Key decisions and trade-offs

1. Own booking system over a third-party widget Chose: a reservation system on the restaurant's own domain with an admin for the team. Not: relying on an embedded booking SaaS. (An OpenTable button stays on the homepage as a second way to book.) Why: direct bookings, no per-cover fee, and the restaurant keeps its customer records. Downside: the restaurant maintains one more system instead of a subscription that updates itself. 2. Video-led homepage, performance-budgeted Chose: a short hero video and full-bleed photography, compressed and lazy-loaded for mobile. Not: a text-first site. Why: food sells visually and most visitors arrive from Instagram and Facebook on a phone. Downside: media weight has to be managed on every content update.

Results

• Direct table bookings on the restaurant's own site
• Own customer records
• Menu + gallery updated by the restaurant

Live at sobharestaurant.co.uk. Guests book a table directly on the restaurant's own site and the team manages reservations and customer details in the admin. Delivery orders still run through the delivery platforms; table bookings no longer depend on them. The menu and gallery feed the restaurant's social media, which SETS Tech runs. The owner reports a clear rise in direct bookings since launch.

Key features

• Immersive video-led homepage.
• Food photography gallery for signature dishes and dining atmosphere.
• Dedicated menu and brand-story sections.
• Table reservation form with confirmation emails and a team alert.
• Admin for bookings, gallery, site images and reviews.
• Local SEO structure for London restaurant discovery.

Development timeline

• Brand
  Defined content hierarchy and visual direction around Turkish culinary identity.
• Build
  Developed the Blade interface and dynamic restaurant content.
• Reserve
  Built the Laravel table reservation system and its admin, with reservation actions throughout the site.
• Launch
  Completed responsive, performance and local-search refinements.