Project #1

Market Research

Osen Izakaya

For my restaurant I chose Osen Izakaya. I've never actually been to this restaurant, but I have been to the 3 competitors I reviewed and so I felt I could help them out. Their website needed the most TLC. So, first off I notice that the nav menu is in red, clashing with the background image. When you click on the desired storefront (Santa Monica), it looks a bit better with nice images but again, the nav menu is clashing with the background. So I'll need to fix that. I like that they use images of the delivery services they're using. That should be one of the first things you see vs. a bunch of text about their story, that can go in a different part of the site in case customers want to know. The menu is fine, but it would be better if was easier to navigate (rather than scrolling) and maybe links to pictures of the food on their menu. They could also start off with most ordered items (I know that's gotten me in the past!)

Target Audience: 20-40yo. Those who want to have a more traditional Japanese food experience at home.

Goals: Allow the nav menu to pop out more, organize the food menu better, bring key items to the front. Direct customers to delivery ASAP, don't have them reading a bunch of text when they're hungry!

Competitive Analysis

Takuma

Takuma is one of my favorite Izakaya-type restaurants in LA and pretty close to where I live. They also have a beautiful website that draws you in immediately. I'm not a big fan of the menu since you can't click on anything to order it immediately. They have tried advertising Bento Boxes for delivery which I think they could emphasize a little more.

Sasaya

Sasaya comes in 2nd place in my mind to Takuma. There are some things that they do better (they have amazing karage and okonomiyaki on the menu). Their website is OK–I was originally going to do this one as my redesign but Osen needed it more. I like that the delivery option comes up immediately so you don't need to go into their website. There aren't a lot of striking visuals as with Takuma and the menu needs to be sectioned into more categories. They should also emphasize some more take-out friendly options to drum up business.

Kanpai

Kanpai has the least attractive website of the 3 in the competitive analysis. It gets down to business letting people know they've reopened with some ugly yellow div on the bottom of the page. There are some images but they are low quality so the food doesn't look as apetizing as Takuma. There's also a very dark video that plays in the background on some pages. Not sure why? Also, I'm not a fan of some of the fonts they're using (the logo in the top left is hard to see). They use a lot of delivery services but they should try to use their logos vs. text to make it easier on the eyes.