🏢 Local Business · Eltham, Melbourne
Eltham · Local Business
Research Phase
Before writing a single line of code, our research agent studied Cornercaf Eltham — their current website, social presence, reviews, team, and services. Here's what stood out.
Located in Eltham — a suburb known for its artistic community near Montsalvat artists' colony, Alistair Knox Park, and the Diamond Valley Railway, giving the cafe a distinctly creative neighbourhood context
Open 7 days with extended weekday hours (7:30am–5pm) and shorter weekend trading (Saturday to 4pm, Sunday to 1pm), sourced from their Yelp listing — one of the few verified data points for this business
Research found no official website, no accessible menu, no Google reviews, and no Instagram data — Cornercaf operates almost entirely through word-of-mouth and local foot traffic with a Facebook presence as their only confirmed digital channel
Design Phase
Every design decision was intentional — informed by the research, not pulled from a template library.
Visual Direction
A 6-page neighbourhood cafe site featuring an ElthamLocalGuide component that connects the cafe to its artistic suburb context, a GalleryGrid for food and venue photography, MenuCard displays, and a ReviewCarousel. The inclusion of a dedicated catering page and contact form extends the site beyond a basic cafe presence into a functional business tool.
Design Rationale
Cornercaf has zero web presence — no website, no accessible reviews, no digital menu — yet it operates in Eltham, a community that values local artisan businesses. The ElthamLocalGuide component is a bespoke addition that positions the cafe within its neighbourhood story (Montsalvat, farmers markets, local parks), turning a simple cafe site into a local discovery tool. The design bridges the gap between a well-loved local spot and the digital visibility it completely lacks.
Build Phase
Site Architecture
// Next.js App Router
Methodology
Spark (research agent) scraped Cornercaf Eltham's current website, Google reviews, social media, and business listings. Every piece of real data — team names, service pricing, business hours, unique details — was extracted into a structured profile.
Based on the research, a bespoke design direction was created specifically for Cornercaf Eltham. No templates — the typography, color palette, layout patterns, and visual effects were all chosen to match this business's personality and industry.
Pixel (design agent) built the entire 6-page Next.js application from scratch — 8 custom components, real content from the research phase, App Router with proper routing, and production-grade code.
Sentinel (QA agent) verified the build compiles cleanly, checked for placeholder content, validated all routes render correctly, and confirmed the design is unique (not recycled from another demo).
Additional Notes
Research checked 8 sources but yielded low data completeness. Brave Search API quota was exhausted, Google search was blocked, and most platforms (TripAdvisor, Yellow Pages, Menulog, Facebook) were inaccessible behind Cloudflare or auth walls. Yelp provided confirmed hours and outdoor seating. No official website exists (cornercaf.com.au does not resolve). The phone number (+61 3 9439 6981) and Facebook page were the only verified contact points.
More from the experiment
This case study is part of the AI Web Lab — a 30-day experiment where AI agents build bespoke websites for real Melbourne businesses. Every site is researched, designed, and built from scratch by a team of five specialist AI agents. The full methodology, code, and results are documented transparently.
This study is being prepared for publication as part of a research paper on AI-assisted web development at scale.
We built Cornercaf Eltham's site in 10 minutes. Same process, same quality — a custom website built for you, not a template.