Dunn's Famous
Dunn's Famous is a Montreal institution — serving smoked meat and classic deli cuisine since 1927, across five locations in Quebec plus a growing franchise network. The client needed a website that carried nine decades of heritage without feeling dated, and that handled far more than a menu: multi-location discovery, catering enquiries, a retail product range, franchise recruitment, and full English/French bilingual delivery for the Quebec market.
The site was built from scratch on Next.js with full server-side rendering, pairing bold editorial storytelling with the practical jobs a multi-location restaurant group needs its site to do.
| (YEAR) | 2026 |
|---|---|
| (TIMELINE) | 6 Weeks |
| (TECH STACK) | Next.jsTypeScriptMultiLanguage |
| (SERVICES) | Website Development |
Challenges
The client needed a website that:
- Presents a menu spanning sandwiches, poutines, pizzas and salads in a way that stays appetising and easy to scan.
- Serves five Quebec locations, each with its own page, address, hours and details.
- Works fully in English and French for the bilingual Quebec market.
- Sells the Dunn's retail range — pickles, chips, mustards, peanuts — alongside the restaurant content.
- Handles catering enquiries and franchise applications as distinct, self-contained journeys.
- Conveys a heritage brand dating to 1927 without looking like a site from that era.
- Loads fast on mobile, where most people search for a restaurant.
Solution
The site was architected on Next.js so every menu item, location and product page is server-rendered and independently indexable.
- Built on the Next.js App Router with full server-side rendering for fast first paint and clean SEO.
- Implemented English/French locale routing so the entire site — menu, locations, retail, forms — exists in both languages.
- Created individual location pages so each branch can rank for its own local searches.
- Developed a retail product section with dedicated pages per item.
- Designed a bold, high-contrast editorial layout that leans on the brand's photography and its 1927 story.
- Built separate catering and franchise funnels so neither competes with the restaurant content.
Result
- Delivered a fully bilingual, responsive site covering restaurants, retail, catering and franchising in one build.
- Each of the five locations now has its own indexable page for local search visibility.
- Server-rendered menu and product pages give the brand far more indexable surface than a single-page menu.
- Catering and franchise enquiries arrive through dedicated, purpose-built journeys.
- A heritage brand now presents itself with a modern, high-performance experience across every device.