Booking system & private admin

From Instagram DMs to a booking system built around a viral feature

A back-garden BBQ restaurant in Penarth, Wales—featured by Eating With Tod and booked out months ahead. Bookings moved out of Instagram DMs into its own website and a private admin: payment status per booking, open-date publishing, and automatic guest emails.

Matty’s BBQ Chop Shop is a back-garden BBQ restaurant in Penarth, Wales. Eating With Tod’s YouTube feature—“Is This The Best Back Garden Restaurant in the UK?!”—plus BBC, Wales Online, and Saturday Kitchen coverage sent a wave of new people looking the business up, while everything still ran through a link list and Instagram DMs.

With nights selling out months ahead, every enquiry, deposit, and follow-up lived in Matty’s phone. I built the public site around the press proof—the feature embedded above the fold with the booking journey next to it—and a private admin behind it: bookings with payment states and quick-reply emails, open-date and capacity publishing, and branded guest emails that send themselves.

The screenshots tell the story in real numbers: November’s calendar shows three published nights and all 50 seats taken and confirmed. Matty edits the homepage, experiences, deposit rules, and shop prices himself, and receipts, balance reminders, and next-morning review requests go out automatically.

Outcomes

• Every booking shows its payment state—no payment yet, deposit received, or paid in full—with quick-reply emails instead of DM threads
• Open dates and seat capacity publish straight to the live booking page—November’s three nights show 50 of 50 seats taken
• Automatic branded guest emails: enquiry thanks, deposit receipts, balance reminders, and next-morning review requests
• The Eating With Tod feature and press strip sit above the fold, so new visitors see the proof before anything else