Built by Corey See the live rebuild ↗
Proposal · prepared for What's Cooking · 1 June 2026

A few specific fixes for whatscookingthame.co.uk

What's Cooking · Thame · website rebuild

I rebuild small-business sites in my own time when I can see they are leaving something on the table. I spent ten minutes on whatscookingthame.co.uk and three things stood out, all on the parts of the site that should be doing the most work for a cafe and deli with this much going for it. Three findings below, then a working rebuild you can click through.

Open live preview  ↗ Read the three findings Reply to the proposal
6-8 Cornmarket · Thame · since 2005

The deli, cafe and caterer on Thame's market High Street, founded by Tony Hazelton, run with Sally Dickinson. Open the live preview ↗

Three findings, from ten minutes on the live site

What a busy Thame deli is currently leaving on the table.

A walk-through of the live whatscookingthame.co.uk on 1 June 2026. None of these is a redesign for its own sake, each is a thing the shop already has that the site is not showing.

01

The site is a hand-built mid-2000s page that was never laid out for a phone.

What I saw
The current whatscookingthame.co.uk is a hand-coded site (credited in the footer to DUAL Digital) still loading jQuery 1.9.1 and an Internet-Explorer-era prompt to install Google Chrome Frame. It leans on a fixed simplegrid layout and a jQuery pull-down menu rather than a modern responsive build, so on a phone, where most people will find a cafe, the page does not lay out the way a 2026 visitor expects.
In the rebuild
The rebuild is a single fast page that lays out cleanly from a 390px phone up to a desktop, with the cafe, the deli counter and the catering arm each given proper room and the menu reachable in one thumb tap.
02

There is no Schema.org data, so Google cannot read the Cornmarket address, the hours, or the cafe and deli as facts.

What I saw
A crawl of the site finds no application/ld+json structured data anywhere. There is no Store or LocalBusiness type, no PostalAddress for 6-8 Cornmarket, no openingHours for the 7:30-to-5 weekday trade, no foundingDate of 2005, and no FAQ markup. The 4.6 out of 5 across 119 Tripadvisor reviews is not surfaced as rating markup either. The facts the shop owns are in the page text but invisible to a machine reading the structured data.
In the rebuild
The rebuild ships a Store plus LocalBusiness and FoodEstablishment graph with the full Cornmarket postal address, the telephone in E.164 form, the Monday-to-Sunday hours, the 2005 founding, and a FAQPage built from what customers actually ask at the counter.
03

The five-item menu is repeated three times in the source, and the food is shown only as small thumbnail tiles.

What I saw
The same five links (Cafe, Deli, Catering, About Us, Contact) appear three times over in the page source, in the header, the mobile pull-menu and the footer, next to an orphaned second menu of sub-pages. Meanwhile the food itself, the thing that should sell the place, is shown as a wall of 200-pixel thumbnail tiles, with no single strong photograph of the counter, the brunch plate or the Ue Coffee on the machine.
In the rebuild
The rebuild gives the page one clear navigation and leads with the real interior, the counter, the copper-lit cafe and the brunch, so the photography does the work the thumbnails currently cannot.
Where the site is today

The current build, and what the rebuild changes.

Current ↗ whatscookingthame.co.uk
Build
Hand-coded static HTML by DUAL Digital. jQuery 1.9.1, Modernizr 2.6.2, a Chrome Frame prompt.
Mobile
simplegrid + a jQuery pull menu. Not a modern responsive layout.
Schema
None. Zero JSON-LD. No Store, no address, no hours, no 2005.
Navigation
The five-item menu repeated three times, plus an orphaned sub-menu.
Imagery
Food shown as 200px thumbnail tiles. No strong hero photograph.
Proposed
Framework
Astro static site (Astro 6), one fast page, no legacy jQuery
Mobile
Responsive from 390px to desktop, menu one thumb tap away
Schema
Store + LocalBusiness + FoodEstablishment + PostalAddress + hours + FAQPage
Navigation
One clear nav, no duplicates, anchored to the cafe, deli and catering
Imagery
The real interior, counter and brunch carried full width
Pricing

One fixed price. No retainer, no contract.

The build rebuilds the front of the website around the cafe, the deli and the catering. Everything below is the whole cost.

£2,000
Fixed for the rebuild. One-off.
£150
Per month for hosting and ongoing care.
£50
Optional. Embedded chatbot trained on FAQs.

No retainer. No contract. No in-person visits, fully remote from Switzerland.

  • •  One round of revisions before launch
  • •  DNS cutover handled, you keep the domain in your name
  • •  30 days of post-launch tweaks at no extra cost
  • •  Source code handed over on day 60, you own everything
The close

If the proposal lands, reply with two or three 20-minute slots in the next ten days for a video call. I take on three Oxfordshire builds this quarter, and first confirmed wins the slot. If I do not hear back by 11 June, the proposal site comes down.

See the live rebuild A working preview you can click through · opens in a new tab ↗