Who doesn’t love pancakes? Whether you call them flapjacks, griddle cakes, or hot cakes, Opportunity Restaurant Group wants to bring an Ihop near you so you can enjoy them every day of the week. Opportunity Restaurant Group is a premier restaurant company that values growth, passion, and excellence. They were ready to expand but lacked a website communicating their vast capabilities to their investors.
During our kickoff call, the company shared that they have one brand folded under their larger umbrella: Opportunity Pancakes. It’s already a big operation, with 20 Ihop locations across four states with over 600 team members! As they acquire more franchises, they plan to build out these sub-brands. Having already made a name for themselves in the restaurant industry, the website was a critical home base for investors to feel confident supporting the mission.
Jason Brown recently acquired Opportunity Restaurant Group, and he knew that he wanted a digital agency with proven experience to redesign the website with a modern UX and streamlined content. After a referral to e9digital, he felt confident that our team at e9digital could whip up the perfect solution!
A restaurant website design with room to grow
The website for Opportunity Restaurant Group had to strike a balance: it needed to show their capabilities while also anticipating future brand expansions.
Rather than create individual websites for every brand within Opportunity Restaurant Group, our design team created distinct subpages. Every time Opportunity Restaurant Group expands, e9digital can create an interior page that essentially functions as a standalone website. These pages build more content for the Opportunity Restaurant Group website, which increases their SEO and helps investors find the company organically.
To build the homepage, our designers kept it simple and focused on their current brand, Opportunity Pancakes. The hero image is an enticing video of waffles and pancakes, encouraging visitors to engage with the page content. Underneath is a banner all about Opportunity Pancakes, inviting viewers to click and learn more.
The Opportunity Pancakes interior page functions like a landing page, using the company colors and IHOP ones to blend the identities. The investors are greeted by:
An inviting hero video of Ihop menu favorites
Proven success with stats on restaurants, staff, and location
An interactive map detailing each location, inspiring the target audience to see where restaurants could grow
A culture section that highlights how Opportunity Restaurant Group values their team members
A career CTA to encourage new talent to apply to a franchise
Our developers built the website on WordPress because of its robust functionality. It’s an open-source content management system, meaning that it’s easy to go in and make changes as a company grows. Whenever Opportunity Restaurant Group adds more brands, we can add content like UGC and social proof to the home page. Eventually, the home page will be a one-stop shop for investors to discover every brand that Opportunity Restaurant Group offers.
Logo creation: flipping pancakes to flip investors
Opportunity Restaurant Group had two logo requests: to make their existing logo look less like clip art and to create a new one for Opportunity Pancakes.
The graphic designer wanted to keep the balance of the typography as it was on both sides of the fork. After some trial and error, we discovered that the fork image was the issue. We redesigned it to look more like a real piece of silverware, using a silver metallic color and connecting the tongs to the base for cohesion.
For Opportunity Pancakes, we created a completely original image. We took inspiration from pancake flipping, something well-known in culture, and used that to connect the two O’s in “opportunity.” It created a symmetrical image that feels professional yet offers a pleasant, comforting feel, showing the fruits of their labor in action. Plus, it gives investors the idea of the end product.
“I like the logo for Opportunity Pancakes. That is so cool. I never would have guessed that, and I think it looks amazing. That’s so smart and really good.” - Jason Brown, Opportunity Restaurant Group
A digital home base for Opportunity Restaurant Group
Opportunity Restaurant Group now has a fully functional website to launch their brands to new heights. With e9digital’s ongoing maintenance package, we can help them add pages and make changes as needed so they put all their focus on investors.
Opportunity strikes when you put yourself out there. Put your best foot forward with a custom website from e9digital. Our designers are fully versed in modern UX best practices to create a visually appealing, navigable website tailored to the needs of your target audience. If you want a website to grow with your business, contact us for a quote today.
