Build recipe — Restaurant / Café / Taproom
A copy-paste walkthrough for building a complete restaurant site with the Pressroot generator. Worked example: Four Score Brewery, a homebrew taproom in Gettysburg — swap in your own details. Total hands-on time: about 10 minutes.
Step 1 — Theme Settings (Appearance → Pressroot → Theme Settings)
This page is the core prompt for your entire site. Everything you enter here compiles into the brief every AI call receives.
Identity
| Field | Enter |
|---|---|
| Business / site name | Four Score Brewery |
| What you do, in one line | Small-batch beers and wood-fired plates in a converted Gettysburg barn — walk-ins welcome, dogs on the patio. |
The one-liner matters most: it becomes the tagline, the hero fallback, and the seed for every AI draft. Say what, where, and one thing that makes you different.
Brand
| Question | Enter | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Light or dark? | Dark | Evening-service restaurants photograph and convert better on dark grounds; brunch cafés should pick Light |
| Personality | Warm & inviting | Steers kit deals toward Warm Sand / Coral Cream / Amber Toast and warm design trends |
| Industry | Restaurant, café & food | Locks industry context into every prompt |
| Who is it for? | locals and Gettysburg weekenders looking for a relaxed night out, groups welcome |
|
| Three words for your voice | warm, unpretentious, a little funny |
|
| Main goal | Book appointments | This sets the header CTA to “Book now” and points every AI-written call to action at reservations |
| Imagery style | Photography | Food sells with photos; AI image generation will use photographic prompts |
| Content density | Minimal — short and punchy | Menus and hours don’t need essays |
| Design trend | 🎲 Surprise me (or lock Editorial serif for a classic bistro feel) |
AI instructions (the highest-priority line the model always obeys)
Always mention we take walk-ins at the bar. Hours are Tue–Sun 4–10pm,
Sunday brunch 10–2. Never call the food "elevated" or "curated". Mention
the dog-friendly patio when it fits. Prices are casual: $8–$28.
Leave Auto-build on save checked, then Save theme settings — the progress bar runs: settings → core brief → design deal → smart copy. The header CTA becomes “Book now”, the footer picks up your tagline on a dark ground, and previews unlock.
Step 2 — Site type (Site Types tab)
- Pick Restaurant / Café — Home, Menu, Reservations → Apply site type. The build bar runs and you get: three core-block pages, the Pressroot Menu (Home · Home · Menu · Reservations) assigned to your header, and a dealt kit + trend filtered by your Warm/Dark answers.
- Open 📋 Restaurant marketing questions and fill the OpenTable-style logistics — these become hard facts in every AI draft:
| Question | Enter |
|---|---|
| Cuisine & price range | wood-fired American with a homebrew taproom, $$ |
| Reservations link | your OpenTable/Resy/Tock URL |
| Hours, one line | Tue–Sun 4–10pm · Sunday brunch 10–2 |
| Signature dish | the 48-hour smoked brisket flatbread |
- Save answers.
Step 3 — Generate everything
In this order, from the pages table:
- ✨ AI-write all pages — the model writes Home, Menu, and Reservations from your brief + the logistics above.
- 🖼 AI image per page — hero photography per page, auto-attached and set as featured image (check the “Generated media” column).
- Don’t love a layout? 🎲 New design per page, or 🎲 Refresh all for a whole new theme (kit + trend + layouts). Copy survives per-page deals only if you AI-write after settling on layouts — so pick layouts first, write second.
Step 4 — Ten-minute polish (the marketer’s pass)
- Open Menu → Edit blocks: paste your real menu into the Table / card blocks. Real prices beat generated ones — never let AI invent a price.
- Open Reservations → confirm the booking button uses your real OpenTable/Resy URL (AI never touches URLs, so paste it once).
- Suggested blocks (in the editor sidebar): Menu → Table for items/prices; Reservations → Buttons front-and-center + hours columns.
- Add 3–5 real photos to the Media Library and swap them in — generated images are placeholders; real food photos convert ~2× better.
- Settings → General: confirm timezone, then publish all three pages.
SEO quick wins (restaurant-specific)
- Title your Home page
Four Score Brewery — Taproom & Kitchen in Gettysburg, PA(business + category + city is the local-search formula). - Put hours, address, and phone in the footer tagline area — Google reads it.
- Claim the Google Business Profile and use the same name/hours everywhere (consistency is the #1 local ranking factor).
- The theme outputs JSON-LD automatically; keep it on unless you run Rank Math/Yoast.
Rule of thumb: answers in Theme Settings are strategy, the Site Types tab is build, the block editor is truth — anything factual (prices, hours, links) gets one manual check there before publishing.