Rock'N Fish

Rock’N Fish Website Redesign: A Modern Refresh for a Manhattan Beach Classic

Web Design & Development

When you’ve spent more than two decades becoming a neighborhood institution, your website needs to evolve alongside your brand. Rock’N Fish’s previous website—originally designed by The Graphic Element years ago but built in HTML by an outside developer—had served the restaurant well at the time. But modern hospitality needs a refreshed brand identity as the limitations of older code made it clear that the site needed a rebuild. The restaurant team approached us with a clear goal: create a modern, guest-friendly website on a platform they could confidently maintain themselves.

The Challenge: A Trusted Legacy Website That Needed to Evolve

Rock’N Fish had recently updated their visual branding in-house: a new color palette, refined typography, updated graphics, and fresh visual direction. But their existing HTML website—built by a developer using TGE’s original design—no longer aligned with the brand or supported their workflow.

Back when the site was created, using HTML with a separately structured mobile version was perfectly standard for hospitality clients. But as the restaurant grew and guest expectations shifted, those “old standard” choices became bottlenecks.

The limitations reflected familiar hospitality pain points:

Even a beautifully designed website eventually outgrows its original structure. When the brand evolves, the website must evolve with it.

Responsive Rock'N Fish website on various devices

The redesign became an opportunity to create a seamless experience that honored the refreshed identity and empowered the internal team.

Our Approach: A Modern Squarespace Rebuild With Custom Enhancements

After reviewing the updated branding and understanding the restaurant team’s workflow needs, we rebuilt the entire website using Squarespace. This provided a flexible, intuitive content management system—perfect for a hospitality brand that updates menus, promotions, and photography often.

Our strategy centered around four core goals:

1. Fully Integrate and Honor Their Updated Brand Identity

We brought the refreshed palette, updated typography, and modern graphic elements into the digital space. The new homepage now reflects the warmth and energy of the Rock’N Fish dining experience, blending bold visuals with clean, contemporary layouts. This is clear in the newly styled hero sections and menu layouts showcased on the home page .

Brand consistency isn’t just visual—it’s a way to reassure guests they’re in the right place before they ever walk through the door.

The new design carries this consistency across every section.

2. Improve User Experience with Clean, Modern Navigation

The new website is intentionally structured as a single scrolling page, creating a simple, streamlined experience. But to support ease of use—and ensure guests can quickly find what they need—we broke out key sections into a clean navigation menu:

This hybrid model gives guests the best of both worlds: the clarity of traditional navigation with the smoothness of a modern scrolling site. The Gallery section, for example, now operates as its own navigable space for easy browsing .

3. Add Custom Development That Elevates Squarespace Beyond a Template

Squarespace was the ideal choice for Rock’N Fish’s internal team, but we wanted to ensure the site still felt custom and elevated. So we added specific enhancements designed for hospitality needs:

Custom PDF Menu Buttons

Each menu—Lunch, Dinner, Happy Hour, Cocktails + Wine, Beer—features a custom-coded PDF button for easy browsing. These are cleaner, sharper, and more on-brand than standard Squarespace links.

Dedicated Events Page

The new Events & Private Dining page highlights the Mezzanine and Patio with detailed descriptions and curated photography. The clean, two-column layout brings clarity and polish .

Parking Page for Visitors

Manhattan Beach parking has its challenges. A dedicated Parking page now helps guests prepare before heading out.

Enhanced Footer Structure

The redesigned footer includes:

Clients love the ease of Squarespace. They just don’t want their website to look like Squarespace.

These enhancements blend the accessibility of a CMS with the tailored feel of a custom-built site.

4. Empower the Restaurant Team With Full Editing Control

A top priority was eliminating barriers to updates. With the new Squarespace build, the Rock’N Fish team can now:

All without needing to call a developer or wait for turnaround time.

Results: A More Intuitive, Beautiful, and Flexible Digital Experience

Even without analytics, the improvements are immediately clear:

Better Guest Experience

Stronger Brand Alignment

Streamlined Operations

A Future-Ready Framework

The new site can easily support:

When the website finally matches the brand experience, everything feels more seamless—from the first Google search to the first Navy Grog.

Before and after of the Rock'N Fish website

Final Thoughts

Rock’N Fish is a staple of Manhattan Beach, with a loyal community and a rich, welcoming atmosphere. Their redesigned website finally reflects the energy, warmth, and polish of the in-person experience—modern, intuitive, guest-focused, and easy for their team to manage.

By rebuilding the site on Squarespace, fully integrating their updated branding, and adding custom enhancements to elevate the framework, we delivered a website ready for Rock’N Fish’s next chapter.

If your restaurant’s website feels outdated, hard to update, or disconnected from your brand, we’d love to help you build a digital experience that supports your team and delights your guests.