Launching Fatties BBQ with a coming-soon site that builds hype

Fatties BBQ is a coal-fired smokehouse setting up in Grays, Essex, trading outside Bombers Cafe on Brentwood Road from Friday to Sunday. They needed a web presence quickly — before the full ordering site was finished — so customers could find them, see where they were trading and place an order.

The brief

Get online fast, look every bit as good as the food, and start driving orders and social follows straight away. What they didn't want was a lifeless "under construction" page that wastes the traffic while everything else gets built.

The approach

So I built a coming-soon page that actually does a job. It carries the full brand — a near-black backdrop with an ember-orange glow rising from the bottom like hot coals, the Fatties script logo front and centre, and a bold "Something's cooking" headline.

• Two clear actions — an "Order now" button and a "Follow the journey" link, so every visitor has an obvious next step.
• Where & when — the trading location and days sit right on the page and link straight to maps.
• Phone-first — most people meet a food business through their phone, so it's built to load instantly and look great on a small screen.

What's under the bonnet

The splash is only the front door. Behind it is a full PHP build — flat-file, with an admin panel and dynamic menu-image uploads — so when Fatties are ready, the complete ordering site switches on without a rebuild. It's structured for search from day one, so the groundwork is already paying off before launch.

A coming-soon page shouldn't cost you customers. Done right, it's a shopfront that sells while the kitchen gets ready.

The result: a real, branded presence live in days, with orders and follows coming in while the full site is finished off.