A Tale of Tasty Transformation: Our Family Restaurant's Makeover!

The journey of our family restaurant, Taiwan Tapas, is a story of adaptation, resilience, and digital transformation. From our humble beginnings in a bustling little town, we have faced and overcome numerous challenges—ranging from maintaining high hygiene standards to navigating the uncertainties of lockdowns. Our efforts have been rewarded with a strong reputation, reflected in a Google score of 4.7 stars, and a loyal customer base that appreciates both our authentic Taiwanese dishes and our accessible pricing.

A significant part of our recent success has been our enhanced online presence. We developed a dedicated website and established key listings on Google and TripAdvisor, all with minimal friction. Our website, taiwantapas.de, now attracts an impressive 200 daily visitors, making it a standout among small business sites. The site is hosted on Netlify, which has provided a seamless and reliable deployment experience. However, we did encounter a technical challenge when attempting to host multiple domains from different providers on Netlify. The process of managing SSL certificates across providers proved problematic, highlighting the importance of consolidating domain management to avoid such issues in customer-facing environments.

Reflecting on the project, if we were to start over, we would again choose Netlify and Gatsby for hosting and site generation, but we would ensure all domains are managed under the Netlify umbrella to streamline SSL and reduce risk. For stakeholders who wish to contribute more directly to content updates, WordPress remains a viable alternative, but Gatsby has given us the flexibility and control to iterate quickly and keep complexity in check.

Technical Insights: Styling and Development Choices

While the core structure of taiwantapas.de is similar to this blog, we took a different approach to styling by adopting Tailwind CSS. Initially, we were skeptical of Tailwind's utility-first abstraction, but practical experience quickly revealed its advantages:

• Development Speed: Tailwind enabled us to prioritize rapid prototyping and iteration, allowing us to focus on delivering value rather than perfecting every detail from the outset. It offers the benefits of inline styles without the drawbacks of code bloat or poor maintainability.
• Simplicity Over CSS Modules: In the React (and Vue) ecosystem, keeping logic and styles together in a single file is a common pattern. Tailwind aligns with this philosophy, providing a streamlined alternative to CSS-in-JS and traditional CSS modules, and ultimately accelerating our workflow.
• Efficient Codebase: Thanks to Tailwind's tree-shaking during build, only the CSS classes actually used in the project are included in the final bundle. This results in a leaner, more performant site, and avoids the redundancy often found in other CSS-in-JS solutions. While composition is possible in other approaches, Tailwind's integration is particularly straightforward.

Although we have yet to apply Tailwind to a larger-scale project, its benefits—especially when combined with a robust dark mode implementation—have shifted our perspective. What initially seemed like an unnecessary abstraction with a challenging syntax has become a preferred tool for writing fast, reusable, and performant CSS.

Conclusion

The transformation of Taiwan Tapas is a testament to the power of combining traditional business values with modern digital tools. By embracing new technologies and learning from each challenge, we have positioned our restaurant for continued growth and success in an increasingly digital world.