Established in 1971, Zappi's Pizza & Pasta is a family-owned Niagara Falls restaurant known for traditional Italian favourites and a loyal following among both locals and Fallsview visitors. The challenge wasn't reinventing the restaurant, it was bringing five decades of brand recognition into a modern digital experience without losing what made it recognizable in the first place.
Zappi’s had spent more than 50 years building a recognizable Niagara Falls brand. The challenge was modernizing its digital presence without losing the character that made it Zappi’s.
The restaurant’s history, personality, and familiar visual identity were part of its value. A polished but generic restaurant website risked stripping away the very things generations of customers had come to recognize, so the new experience needed to feel modern without disconnecting from the brand’s roots.
The existing website and hosting environment created another challenge. Access, routine changes, and migration had become unnecessarily difficult, but customers were still relying on the website for menus, restaurant information, and reservations through OpenTable. The transition needed to happen without disrupting any of those services or taking the restaurant’s online presence offline.
Search visibility also mattered beyond customers who already knew the Zappi’s name. Niagara Falls attracts millions of visitors alongside its local population, creating significant competition for restaurant searches. The new website needed to maintain visibility for branded searches while also positioning Zappi’s in front of visitors actively looking for somewhere to eat.
This wasn’t about reinventing a Niagara Falls institution. It was about giving an established restaurant a modern digital presence that preserved its personality, supported its customers, and helped the next generation of visitors discover it.
We rebuilt the website around Zappi’s existing personality rather than replacing it with a generic modern restaurant aesthetic.
The new mobile-first experience combines responsive design with visual elements that preserve the familiar, old-school Italian atmosphere customers already associate with the restaurant.
Menus, specials, restaurant information, online ordering, and OpenTable reservations were reorganized around how customers actually use the website. Clearer navigation and direct paths to ordering and reservations reduced the steps between discovering Zappi’s and taking action.
We also developed an ongoing SEO strategy designed to protect Zappi’s strong branded search presence while expanding its visibility for non-branded, high-intent searches such as “pizza in Niagara Falls” and “Italian restaurants near me.”
This allows the website to serve both customers already searching for Zappi’s and visitors deciding where to eat in Niagara Falls.
Following launch, Eleven65 continues to provide website support and SEO management as the restaurant’s digital needs evolve.
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5,000 monthly sessions, with visibility extending beyond the Zappi's name into commercial searches like "pizza in Niagara Falls" and "Italian restaurants near me"
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795 monthly inquiries generated through ChatGPT alone, reflecting meaningful traction within AI-driven search on top of traditional organic discovery
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Online ordering and OpenTable reservations linked directly into the site, creating a clear path from discovery to action rather than requiring a separate app or phone call
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Zero-downtime migration off a legacy hosting provider that had made routine changes difficult — with no interruption to the restaurant's live customer-facing functionality
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Growing presence across both traditional and AI-driven search platforms, with Zappi's now appearing for relevant dining and restaurant searches beyond Google alone
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An ongoing relationship, with Eleven65 continuing to manage SEO and provide website support as the restaurant evolves
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Project Visuals
How Eleven65 Modernized a 50-Year Niagara Falls
Landmark, Without Losing What Makes It Zappi's
Eleven65 Digital