Client: 5th Street Group (Alejandro Torio, Patrick Whelan, and Top Chef Jamie Lynch) — one of the fastest-growing restaurant groups in the United States, rebranding from “5Church” to “Church & Union.”
Role: Web Designer / Developer / Creative Director
Disciplines: Web Design & Development, Brand Rollout, UI/UX, Typography, Multi-Location Digital Strategy
The Problem
A rebrand is already high-stakes. A rebrand across three live restaurant locations — Nashville, Charleston, and Charlotte — with a hard deadline and zero tolerance for downtime is an entirely different animal. The 5th Street Group needed three fully refreshed websites that honored the new Church & Union identity while each feeling distinctly tuned to its city, all shipped within four months without disrupting a single dinner service.
The Process
I built a shared base theme that could be localized — same structural DNA, different personality by market. Custom anchor navigation and frosted glass UI elements gave the sites a polished, high-end restaurant feel without relying on heavy frameworks that would slow them down. The detail I was most precise about was typography: each location’s physical space features handwritten text on the ceilings and walls, and I matched those typographic textures in the digital design to create continuity between the room and the screen. Three cities, one system, no downtime.
The Results
All three sites launched on schedule and without interruption to the business — a logistical win that’s easy to understate until you’ve tried to coordinate a multi-city digital rollout for an active hospitality group. Each location’s site felt genuinely local while remaining unmistakably Church & Union, which is exactly the balance a growing restaurant brand needs to strike as it expands into new markets.
