Aventuras Café

Bringing Costa Rican Flavors to Digital Life - An e-commerce website for a hidden gem in the Osa Peninsula.

Aventuras Café, located only 700 meters from the Puerto Jimenez airport, is more than just a restaurant; it represents the continuation of a family's commitment to sustainable tourism. This beachside café, which opened in 2021 as a part of their Aventuras Tropicales kayak tours, welcomes tourists to what National Geographic describes as "the most biologically intense place on Earth." Their menu highlights local harvests with dishes such as coconut yuca cake, tuna burgers, and superb locally produced coffee.

Date
September 2022

Role
Web Design
Web Development

Team
Cory Hughes
Jesse Conner
Kimberly Wang

Deliverables
Prototypes
Website

{ The Challenge }

Even Paradise needs a digital presence. Despite being one of the few restaurants located on the Osa Peninsula, Aventuras Café remains a hidden gem for many travellers planning their Costa Rica trips.

Our mission was clear: create a bilingual website that would bring this vibrant café to life online, connecting them with tourists searching for genuine memories and memorable meals.

Through user research and competitor analysis, we identified what travellers look for when planning their culinary experiences abroad. These insights shaped our approach to creating a website where users could easily find what they needed, whether planning from home or searching on the go.

{ Design Process }

The rich earthy tones of Aventuras Café's branding, unique logo, and broad menu options served as the ideal foundation for a personality-driven website.

Our design priorities focused around:

  • Creating an appealing, easily updatable menu system to highlight their unique offerings

  • Capturing Costa Rica's refreshing energy through images that felt as revitalizing as the café's drinks.

  • Optimizing for both performance and usability across all devices

Providing a smooth mobile experience for travellers who may not have laptops while touring.

We recognized that many users would be accessing the site while travelling, so mobile optimization wasn't just a technical requirement, it was essential to the user journey. Every design decision was filtered through the lens of accessibility, ensuring that crucial information like location, hours, and menu items was easily discoverable regardless of device.

Working with Laura from Aventuras throughout this process was a true collaboration. Her knowledge of the local culture and the café's mission enabled us to incorporate authenticity into every part of the design. Pura Vida, indeed!

All colors and typography were implemented according to the brand guidelines provided by the client.

{ The Result }

The final website combines functionality with the warm, inviting atmosphere that characterizes Aventuras Café. The bilingual implementation allows both English-speaking tourists and local Spanish speakers to easily navigate.

{ Reflection }

This project stands as one of my proudest accomplishments, not just for the end result, but for the growth I experienced throughout the process. Design decision-making, especially for a business with diverse customers, has always been challenging for me. However, this project taught me to trust my design instincts while staying firmly grounded in user-centered principles.

I've come to appreciate that good design requires both courage and iteration. Taking that first step, making those initial design decisions, provides the foundation that can be refined and improved over time. Each iteration brought us closer to a solution that truly served both the business and its customers.

The journey of creating Aventuras Café's digital presence reinforced my belief that the best designs emerge when we balance data-driven decisions with intuitive creativity, and always keep the end user at the center of it all.