Papi’s Mexican Grill

eCommerce, Mexican Food, Restaurant Sites

Status:
Online
Client:
PopMenu
Established:
2025
URL:
papismexicangrill.com
Location:
NE, USA
Project Scope:
Website Redesign, Brand System, Local SEO, OLO Optimization

Project Overview

Bold Flavors, Digital Invisibility

Papi’s Mexican Grill had successfully built a loyal following through word-of-mouth, but their digital presence was practically non-existent. Relying on a basic starter page, the brand lacked cohesion; the warm colors of their logo were missing from the screen, and online ordering traffic was stagnant. Core revenue drivers like catering and hiring were buried deep in the navigation, invisible to the casual browser.

The mission was to amplify the brand's volume. We needed to transform a passive landing page into an aggressive revenue engine. The goal was to architect a cohesive brand identity and a streamlined user journey that surfaced high-value services immediately, turning Papi’s from a local secret into a digital heavyweight in the Omaha food scene.

Challenges & Goals

The Challenges

Brand Fragmentation: The existing site failed to utilize the brand’s warm palette, creating a visual disconnect between the digital experience and the physical restaurant.

Buried Revenue: Essential growth channels—Catering and Recruitment—were hidden three clicks deep, resulting in zero organic leads.

Search Invisibility: A lack of structured data and keyword strategy meant the restaurant wasn't appearing for high-intent local searches like "best Mexican food in Omaha."

The Goals

Visual Systemization: Build a robust color system around the logo’s Red (#E74C43), Green (#08633D), and Tan (#B79D7A) to create instant brand recognition.

Homepage Hierarchy: Re-architect the landing flow to prioritize "Online Ordering" and "Crowd Favorites," reducing bounce rates.

Local Dominance: Implement Restaurant and Menu Schema markup to secure a first-page Google ranking within six weeks.

Strategy & Approach

Phase 1: Brand & Palette Engineering

We started by extracting the exact swatches from the logo to build a cohesive design system. We paired Montserrat (headings) with Open Sans (body) to create a clean, modern typography stack that echoed the logotype, ensuring visual consistency across all touchpoints.

Phase 2: UX Architecture & Mobile Optimization

We overhauled the homepage hierarchy to focus on conversion. The new flow features a bold hero with a Red "Order Online" button, followed by deep-linked "Crowd Favorite" tiles. For mobile users, I wrote custom SCSS to enlarge tap targets and stack Call-to-Action buttons vertically on screens smaller than 480px, significantly improving usability.

Phase 3: SEO & Performance

We built the site to be found and to be fast. We injected location phrases like "best Mexican food in Omaha" into meta titles and copy. Simultaneously, we compressed hero images and inlined critical CSS, achieving a Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) of < 1.9s, ensuring the site loads instantly on mobile networks.

Solutions Delivered

Area	Highlight
Visual Design	Created a custom theme using #E74C43, #08633D, and #B79D7A to perfectly match the sombrero-and-pepper logo.
Mobile UX	Developed custom SCSS overrides to optimize tap targets and stack CTAs for small screens, boosting mobile completion rates by 31%.
Revenue Funnels	Built standalone landing pages for Catering and Hiring with sticky mobile CTA bars to surface these high-value channels.
SEO Infrastructure	Implemented extensive Schema markup (Restaurant, Menu, Review) to drive local search visibility.
Performance	Optimized assets and code structure to achieve sub-2-second load times, reducing bounce rates by 18%.