The Hospitality Rebuild / Squarespace and Wix
Moving your venue off Squarespace.
A venue website you actually own. Not a template with your colours on it.
You paid an agency a premium for a Squarespace or Wix site. This time the code, the database and the back office are yours. $3,000 plus GST. Two weeks. A year of hosting and two months of search setup included.
- $3,000 + GST
- Fixed price
- Two weeks
- Turnaround
- One year
- Hosting included
- None
- Platform subscription
Thirty minutes on your current site. Bring the agency invoice.
What I've built
See it before you read about it.
Bennie's Cafe & Bistro
Harbourside all-day cafe-bistro, Circular Quay. Launched August 2026.
Before
A Squarespace site.
After
A venue site on my hospitality CMS, on code the venue owns. Every address from the old Squarespace site redirects to its new home.
Other builds
When I ran an AI search audit on the Bennie's build, it came back unusually more visible than other venue sites in its industry.
One audit on one build. AI answers vary; no placement is guaranteed.
Sound familiar?
If any of this is you, keep reading.
- You paid the agency thousands. You still pay Squarespace every month.
- The quote said custom. You got a template with your colours on it.
- The menu is a PDF because that's what the agency uploaded.
- Every change is an email. Every email is an invoice.
- Stop paying and the site is gone. Export and you get content, not a site.
- Nobody will tell you what it costs to leave.
- The booking widget was bolted on and fights the design.
- You hired a local agency and never met the person who built it.
- You hit the platform's limit. The answer was another subscription.
What changes
This time you own it.
Owned, not rented.
At handover you get the code, the database and a guide to how it works: what a practical handover needs. No platform subscription. Hosting is $500 a year.
Actually custom.
Designed from the ground up around your venue. Not a template with your colours on it, and nothing underneath it that isn't yours.
A menu your staff change from a phone.
Menus per service, drag and drop, photos, prices. The site updates in seconds. No PDF, no email to the agency, no invoice.
Events with their own pages.
Every event gets its own page with a booking panel, add to calendar, and it turns itself off when the night has passed.
Your booking system, connected properly.
Whatever you use for reservations is wired into the site from the start. Connected, not bolted on.
Your old links keep working.
Every address from your Squarespace site gets redirected to its new home, so the links people shared and the pages Google already knows carry across.
On the call
Bring your Squarespace login and the agency's invoice. I'll show you what the site can and can't export, what you'd actually take with you if you left, and what the rebuild costs against what you're paying now over three years.
The offer, in full
One price. Two weeks. Yours at the end.
$3,000 + GST
Fixed price
Two weeks
Turnaround
- A new site designed from the ground up around your venue. Phones first, because that's where your guests are.
- It runs on my hospitality CMS. Menus, events, opening hours, gallery, reviews, enquiries. Your staff update it from a phone.
- Your booking system stays. It's connected, not replaced.
Included. No extra cost.
Every old address redirected to its new home.
The links people shared and the pages Google already knows carry across.
Two months of search setup after launch.
Structured data checked, Google Business Profile aligned, Search Console submitted, AI-assistant files published, and a check at week four and week eight of what's indexing. No ranking is promised.
A year of hosting.
After that it's $500 a year. No monthly retainer, no platform subscription.
The code, the database and the guide.
Yours, with the code, data and instructions needed for a practical handover.
Not included: online ordering, loyalty programs, POS or table-management integrations, additional languages. If you need them, they're scoped separately.
At handover you get the code, the database and a guide to how the site works.
Two weeks starts the day I have your logo, photos, menus and booking link.
What happens when you book
Four steps. No surprises.
01
The call
Thirty minutes on your current site and the agency's invoice. I show you what exports and what doesn't, we agree what's in scope, and you get the price in writing.
02
The build
Two weeks from the day I have your assets. Your content comes across. You see it before it goes live and you get a round of changes.
03
Handover and switch
Redirects go in, the new site goes live, your staff are shown the back office, and you cancel the subscription. You get the code, the database and the guide.
04
Two months of search setup
Structured data, Google Business Profile, Search Console, AI-assistant files, and a check at week four and week eight of what's indexing.
Questions
Straight answers.
Who this is for
Venues on Squarespace, Wix or a similar builder, especially where an agency built it.
Cafes, restaurants, bars and venues still paying the subscription on a site someone else built. If you recognised yourself at the top of this page, book the call and bring the invoice.
Not for venues that need online ordering, loyalty, POS or table-management integration as part of the build. Those are scoped separately.
Not on a builder? See the standard hospitality rebuild →Further reading
Web Design / Hospitality
Websites for venues that are done with PDF menus.
Custom-coded sites for cafes, restaurants and bars in Sydney. Built around service, run from a phone, owned outright.
Notes: Chapter 01
Own Your Website
Renting, owning, and why the difference decides everything.
Notes: Chapter 03
The Knowledge Tax
The hidden fee agencies charge because they know what things cost and you do not.
Book a Free Site Audit
Thirty minutes on your current site. Bring the agency invoice.
Thirty minutes on your current site. Bring the agency invoice.