Oakhouse Coffee

Oakhouse is a small coffee roastery in Lisbon's Graça neighbourhood, loved by its regulars for its beans and for its baristas' advice. Its old website was a template shop that listed twenty coffees in a grid and left people to guess.

The challenge

The founders wanted the online shop to feel like the café: warm, personal and helpful. They also wanted to grow coffee subscriptions, which made up a small share of sales but most of the profit.

The approach

We started behind the counter. I spent a morning listening to how the baristas helped customers choose, then turned their questions into a short guide on the site: how do you brew, how do you take your coffee, and do you like it bright or chocolatey? The answers lead to two or three coffees instead of twenty.

Each coffee page tells the story of the farm and the roast in the roasters' own words, with photos taken in the roastery. Subscriptions became a simple choice of coffee, bag size and frequency, which customers can pause or change in two taps.

I designed and built the site, connected it to the roastery's existing stock and delivery systems, and kept it fast on the patchy mobile connections many customers browse on.

The outcome

Online orders tripled in the first quarter after launch, mobile conversion rose by almost half, and the shop now has more than 900 active subscriptions. The baristas say regulars mention the guide at the counter.