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Backyard Bougie

Case Study · 2026

Chez Bacchus

Full marketing reset for an elevated California fine-dining restaurant — seated covers up 25% year over year and 44% month over month, ~$199K in incremental annualized revenue, organic search clicks +49% MoM, and a 4.8★ reputation across 730 reviews. Built on AI concierge, a re-permissioned list, restraint-led brand work, and an OpenTable Experiences engine.

Industry

Restaurant

Services

Website Design · AI Concierge · Reputation Management · Email & SMS · Social Media · Brand Positioning · OpenTable Strategy

Snapshot

Chez Bacchus is an elevated California fine-dining restaurant in Long Beach’s Arts District — Chef Danny Le and Advanced Sommelier John Hansen, known for seasonal cuisine, a by-the-glass wine program, and weekend Afternoon Tea.

The Challenge

The restaurant had no shortage of marketing activity — but it was fragmented. Plenty of social motion generating views and likes, yet none of it translating into reservations. The brief was clear: attract more of the right guests, build predictable covers, and protect an elevated brand. No discount-driven tactics. No viral gimmicks.

The contact list was full of long-dormant addresses with unclear consent. The brand voice had wandered into promo territory that did not match the in-restaurant experience. The website was stale. Inbound calls, DMs, and review responses all happened in different places, with no through-line.

The Strategy

We made a deliberate trade: quiet the noise, consolidate a scattered presence into one elevated brand voice, and measure success in reservations and revenue rather than vanity engagement. The north-star metric became OpenTable seated covers — real revenue, not social spikes.

What We Built

  • Custom Astro website with clean menu management, accurate hours, and an editorial cadence that matches the restaurant’s actual experience
  • AI concierge across four channels — voice receptionist, website chat, social DM responses, and reputation management — all answering in the restaurant’s voice, escalating the right conversations to humans
  • Re-permission campaign for the legacy contact list — opt-back-in flow that cleared out dead addresses, re-established consent under TCPA and email best practices, and rebuilt a smaller but engaged audience worth marketing to
  • Brand drift correction through experience-led partnership events — wine dinners, the Flight Club series, chef collaborations, and seasonal experiences that pulled the brand back toward what makes it worth visiting in the first place
  • OpenTable Experiences engine — Afternoon Tea, specialty dinners, and ticketed events launched as bookable experiences, not just reservations
  • Meta Business consolidation — Facebook and Instagram business assets unified, page roles cleaned up, ad account permissions sorted, and pixel/conversion tracking wired through properly for the first time

The Results (May 2026)

  • Seated covers up 25% year over year (same-store) and 44% month over month — roughly $16,600 in incremental monthly revenue versus the prior year (~$199K annualized) at a $102.27 average cover. Per-cover spend held flat YoY, meaning growth was driven cleanly by volume, not by check inflation.
  • Organic search clicks +49% MoM, impressions +71%, with the new dedicated Afternoon Tea page ranking page-one for high-intent local terms.
  • Email open rate of 43.6% — well above industry norms for restaurant marketing.
  • 4.8★ reputation across 730 reviews on Google, Yelp, and OpenTable, with brand-voiced automated review responses across all three platforms.

The Takeaway

Elevated brands don’t need to shout. By converting attention into reservations rather than chasing engagement, Chez Bacchus grew real, same-store revenue while strengthening — not diluting — its brand.