🥐 Bakery · Essendon, Melbourne
Essendon · Local Business
Research Phase
Before writing a single line of code, our research agent studied Old Strathmore Bakery — their current website, social presence, reviews, team, and services. Here's what stood out.
4.6 stars from 58 Google reviews with donuts as the most-mentioned item (7 Google mentions), followed by coffee (5 mentions) — owner-baker Tin is referenced by name in multiple reviews as someone who 'treats his customers amazingly'
Over 20 years in the same Woodland Street location within the Liquor Legends Woodland St & Convenience complex — a classic hot bread shop surviving in a Melbourne landscape increasingly dominated by artisan sourdough bars and trendy cafes
A loyal customer of 20+ years (reviewer 'Ar Min') specifically praises the gluten-free seeded multigrain bread and the ability to phone-order for pickup — suggesting a bakery with long-term customer relationships uncommon in the industry
Design Phase
Every design decision was intentional — informed by the research, not pulled from a template library.
Visual Direction
A 6-page site with an 8-component build featuring a BakeCalendar interactive element showing which specialty items are baked on which days. Dedicated pages for custom cakes, catering, and pre-ordering address the bakery's key revenue streams beyond walk-in trade, with MenuCard components showcasing the signature pies, donuts, and gluten-free range.
Design Rationale
For a bakery with zero digital presence that thrives on 20+ years of word-of-mouth, the design bridges the gap between Tin's personal relationships and online discoverability. The BakeCalendar solves a real problem — regulars already know which days to come for specific items, but new customers don't. The pre-order page formalises the phone-order system reviewers already use.
Build Phase
Site Architecture
// Next.js App Router
Methodology
Spark (research agent) scraped Old Strathmore Bakery'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 Old Strathmore Bakery. 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 covered 7 sources with Google Maps and Yelp as primary data. Data completeness rated medium — no website or social media exists whatsoever. Owner name 'Tin' identified from multiple independent Google reviews. Menu items reconstructed from review mentions and Google photo tags. The caramel slice described as 'heavenly' by reviewer Koko Crozier was a standout discovery.
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 Old Strathmore Bakery's site in 8 minutes. Same process, same quality — a custom website built for you, not a template.