Rotolo's - Gatorworks

Practically a local staple, Rotolo’s is one of Baton Rouge’s best pizza joints and casual Italian restaurants. It even has a Hollywood claim to fame! Did you know that the infamous Rotolo’s cup was featured in the hit movie, Pitch Perfect?

The Project

Over the last few years, Rotolo’s has launched a new brand called Rotolo’s Craft & Crust. Not only does it have a new logo and identity, it has an entirely separate menu as well. The ingredients are different, the recipes are unique and the way the pizzas are made are practically night and day. Because of these large differences, two brands needed to be represented equally throughout the site. Using a very strategic design layout, and complicated cookie-usage and functionality, Gatorworks created Rotolo’s new website housing two brands and two menus where users can easily switch from one brand to another.

Launch the Site

Key Features

Two Brands, One Website

When discussing the creative strategy for the new website, the client made it clear their desire to ensure that both the original Rotolo’s and Rotolo’s Craft & Crust were equally represented as soon as the user loaded the homepage. To do this, we designed a half-and-half layout where one image was split into two separate dishes, each dish representing one restaurant. Hover effects allow the user to explore both brands, while both logos are also clearly displayed in the navigation at all times. The site also has the functionality of ensuring the user sees the menu content only relevant to the brand location they have selected. So a user cannot see a Rotolo’s Craft & Crust menu when they have selected a Rotolo’s Pizzeria location instead.

As basically the most visited page of any restaurant website, the menu page had to be easy-to-read and navigable. We chose the use of a magellan navigation to allow the user to jump from menu section to menu section without needing to scroll through the entire page. We also kept the menu bar locked to the top, employing fun icons that draw the user’s attention and give them the opportunity to move faster through the menu without needing to read the section titles.

Locations Map

With over fifteen locations, Rotolo’s needed a highly sophisticated map that allowed users to easily see which locations were nearest to them. The new website’s map has the capability to search by current location, city, state or zip. Users can also filter the locations by brand—Pizzeria vs. Craft & Crust—to help their decision making process. Our goal was to provide a variety of filtering options for ease of use and to get the people to the pizza, faster!

Summary

Gatorworks built one website for two restaurants, an impressive feat, but not an impossible one. Implementing a very strategic design with complicated functionality and an emphasis on location-based online ordering, we created a website that all pizza lovers can enjoy.

Rotolo’s