Wise Clock Cafe
Turning a beach café's photo-album website into one that sells both the stand and its pop-up business
Wise Clock Cafe and Creamery is a concession stand at Beach 97th Street in Rockaway Park, Queens, founded in 2018 by Alex Moule and Nick DePrima. Its old Wix site was mostly a photo grid. I redesigned and rebuilt it for two very different visitors: beachgoers deciding where to eat right now, and event planners deciding whether to book the café's coffee, panini, and ice cream pop-ups.
A beach café with real character and a website that didn't show it.
Wise Clock already had a genuine identity: hand-painted signage, a clock-tower logo marked "EST. 2018," and a spot on the Rockaway boardwalk. The website just didn't tell anyone what it was, where it was, or how to book it.
I audited the existing Wix site, defined who the new site was for, and designed and built it in React, TypeScript, and Tailwind. Every fact on the site comes from the owners' own material: the founders, the founding year, the address, and the seasonal menu PDF. Hours, which aren't published anywhere, are left as a flagged gap rather than guessed.
A photo album, not a website.
I reviewed wiseclock.net on desktop and on a phone, as both a hungry beachgoer and an event planner. Drag to compare the original homepage with the redesign.
- 01Issue foundCritical
The homepage never said what the business was.
Below the logo was a grid of photos: no headline, no description, no address, no hours.
How I solved itLed with a headline and a one-line description ("Coffee, paninis and beachside favorites just steps from the ocean at Beach 97th Street"), plus Visit Us and View Menu buttons.
- 02Issue foundCritical
The pop-up business was a single nav button.
Coffee, panini, and ice cream pop-ups are a real revenue line, but only a "Book a Popup" tab pointed to them.
How I solved itGave pop-ups and events their own pages, a homepage section, and a persistent "Book an Event" button in the header.
- 03Issue foundMajor
A navigation item led to an empty page.
"Experiences" opened a page saying no experiences were being offered.
How I solved itRemoved it from the navigation rather than presenting a service the café doesn't run.
- 04Issue foundMajor
Menu and directions were buried in the footer.
"Explore our menu" and "Get directions" only appeared at the very bottom, and a chat widget floated over the content on the way down.
How I solved itPut Menu and Visit in the main navigation and added a location section with directions near the top of the homepage.
A beachgoer and an event planner want opposite things.
Standing on the boardwalk on cellular data, deciding where to eat in the next ten minutes. Needs the menu, the location, and whether it's open, within seconds and one thumb's reach.
Planning a party, a school event, or a company outing weeks ahead. Needs to believe the pop-up business is serious, see what each option looks like, and send an inquiry.
One brand, two halves
The stand and the pop-ups are one story — never a homepage plus a buried "Catering" page.
Never invent
No made-up hours, prices, reviews, or services. If the owners haven't confirmed it, the site doesn't claim it.
Real over new
The café's own photos, signage, and logos outrank any new asset designed to fill the same space.
Thumb-first
Menu, directions, and Book an Event reachable within one thumb's reach on every page.
Built from the café's own material.
Should the site get a new visual identity, or be built from what the café already had?
Why: Wise Clock's hand-painted signage and clock motif are real and recognizable. I recovered eight original photos at full resolution from the old site's media library and cropped the circular badge from the menu PDF, so the site looks unmistakably like this café rather than a template.
Around those photos: a warm sand background the owners asked for, one committed accent (Rockaway Blue) for actions, Fraunces for headlines, DM Sans for body text, and Space Mono only for short location captions. Layouts use asymmetric splits so no section reads as a stock three-card grid.
Catching my own habits before the client did.
Before handing off, I ran the build through a design-quality audit and reviewed every finding by hand. Some were real problems I fixed; some were deliberate choices I kept, with a reason.
- 01Issue foundMajor
Small labels stacked above every headline.
I'd put a tiny caps label (like the location) above the hero headline and repeated the pattern in five more sections — a common template tell.
How I solved itKept the information but moved it: the location now sits after the hero buttons as a caption, and the extra labels were removed so the headlines speak for themselves.
- 02Issue foundMajor
A paragraph ran the full width of the page.
One layout wrapper passed its full width down to body text, creating lines far too long to read comfortably.
How I solved itConstrained every paragraph to a 28–42rem measure and set that width on a separate element, so the bug can't recur.
- 03Issue foundMinor
All-caps text used for full sentences.
The monospace caption style had spread to menu notes and a form label that were sentence-length.
How I solved itRemoved uppercase from anything longer than a short location or date caption.
- 04Issue foundMinor
The cream background was flagged as a cliché.
The audit flags warm cream backgrounds as an overused choice.
How I solved itKept it on purpose: it was the owners' own requested color, not a default. I documented why, alongside the other reviewed-and-kept findings.
Built for a phone on the boardwalk.
Most visitors check the menu from a phone, outside, often in bright sun. I prioritized high contrast and large tap targets, kept Menu and Visit one tap away, and made sure the full menu works both as a readable page and as the original PDF.
A site that feels like the café and takes the pop-up business seriously.
- A homepage that says what, where, and what to do next within the first screen
- Pop-ups and events given their own pages, a homepage section, and a persistent booking button
- A dead-end navigation item removed and the menu moved up front
- A brand built entirely from the café's own photography and logos
- A validated event-inquiry form, ready to connect to whichever service the owners choose
This is a client project, so I'm evaluating it against the goals set with the owners. The next steps are confirming operating hours and connecting the inquiry form, then tracking event inquiries through the season.
What I learned.
Real assets beat invented ones
Recovering the café's own photos and logos took longer than choosing stock images, but it's the reason the site feels like Wise Clock and not a template with its name on it.
Two audiences means two jobs
Beachgoers and event planners want almost opposite things. Designing for both meant being honest that one hero couldn't serve both, so the pop-up business needed its own space.
Review your own work like a stranger would
The design audit caught habits I'd stopped seeing. Fixing some findings and consciously keeping others, with a documented reason, made the handoff far more defensible.