Rica – Restaurant & Pub WP Theme 1.9

People choose your room before your dish

Someone is looking for a place to have dinner with a friend they have not seen in months. They do not know yet what they will order. What they do know is something else: they want somewhere quiet, or with music, or with low lighting. A list of dishes does not answer that, and neither does a small photo of the front door.

In hospitality, people choose the atmosphere first, so a venue's website should show it before the menu. Rica, the G5Theme theme for restaurants, cafes and bars, brings together pieces for doing that: parallax sections with image and video backgrounds, Revolution Slider included and nine starting demos.

The consequence is practical. The work your customer will notice most lies in the material you film or photograph at your venue: the bar in the late afternoon, tables with people at them, the kitchen in action. Without that material, these sections stay a template.

The pieces Rica gives you

• Nine demos with one-click installation of the sample data.
• Six header options, with a sticky header available.
• Parallax sections with an image or video background.
• Revolution Slider and WPBakery Page Builder included.
• XMENU mega menu, customizable, plus several navigation menu types.
• Redux panel with unlimited colors and a boxed or full-width layout.
• Ready for WooCommerce, Gutenberg and widgets.
• Right-to-left support, PO/MO files for translation and a child theme.
• Coming Soon and 404 pages, retina displays and smooth scrolling.

How to show your venue with them

This combination is our own suggestion for you to adapt, and it is worth testing with your own images:

• Home page: a short video of the room in a parallax section, or a slider sequence with the bar, the dining room and the terrace if you have one.
• Below it: one or two lines saying what kind of place you are and what occasion you suit.
• Further down: the menu, the opening hours and how to get there, which is information visitors also come looking for.

The sticky header helps here, because it keeps the menu in view while people move through a long home page. If the venue has not opened yet, the Coming Soon page covers the wait until the full site is ready.

Tables are managed with another tool

Rica handles the presentation of the venue. Among its features there is no booking system with tables and time slots, so that part needs a dedicated plugin or an external service.

Among its features there is no event management with tickets or capacity either. If your venue lives on its program, compare first with a theme built for that, such as Jz Pub, listed below.

Getting it running with WPBakery

WPBakery Page Builder and Revolution Slider are included, and WooCommerce is only needed if you are going to sell. To begin:

1. Install and activate the theme; if you are going to touch code, work on the child theme.
2. Import the data of one demo with the one-click installer.
3. Adjust colors and the header from the Redux panel.
4. Replace the sample images and videos with those of your venue.
5. Remove the sample pages you will not use.

Attika, Jz Pub and Five Star versus Rica

Attika aims at fine dining, with eight home pages, a menu, WooCommerce and OpenTable bookings. Jz Pub focuses on bars and pubs, and has event management with booking for them.

If you stay with Rica and need to take bookings, Five Star Restaurant Reservations adds the form, table assignment and email reminders.

Rica for restaurants, cafes and bars

What kind of business is it for?

Restaurants, cafes and bars, and also bakeries and venues with events.

How many demos does it include?

Nine, with one-click installation of the sample data.

Which builder is it edited with?

With WPBakery Page Builder, which is included, and it is also optimized for Gutenberg.

Can I use a video background?

Yes. The parallax sections accept an image or video background.

Can it sell online?

It is ready for WooCommerce, which you need to install if you want to set up a store.

How do I take table bookings?

With a dedicated plugin or an external service, since its features do not include a system with tables and time slots.