MAPLE GROVE
RESTAURANT WEEK 2025
Full-Stack Case Study
THE BRIEF
The City of Maple Grove was launching their inaugural Restaurant Week and needed a digital platform to coordinate the event. The project required coordinating 40+ participating restaurants, tracking visitor engagement across venues, creating an interactive mobile-first experience, providing real-time analytics for city stakeholders, and building reusable infrastructure for future city events.
The Goal: Deliver a polished, production-ready platform that makes Restaurant Week memorable for participants and measurable for the city—on a 4-month timeline.
Client
City of Maple Grove + Clubhaus Agency
Role
Senior Full-Stack Engineer (Contract)
Timeline
March 2025 – August 2025
Launch Date
August 10, 2025
Live Site
experiencemaplegrove.app →THE SOLUTION
I built a gamified digital passport that transformed restaurant discovery into a competitive, social experience.
Core Mechanics
- QR Code Check-Ins — Scan at participating restaurants to collect digital stamps
- Live Leaderboard — Public rankings drove friendly competition and repeat visits
- Raffle System — Each stamp = raffle entry for grand prize
- Social Proof — Live activity feed showing recent check-ins
- Multi-Language Support — Spanish localization for broader accessibility
- Role-Based Dashboards — Separate interfaces for public users, restaurants, and city admins
Technical Architecture
- Frontend: Next.js 14, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
- Backend: Supabase (PostgreSQL with Row Level Security)
- Auth: Clerk (seamless Google OAuth + email)
- Infrastructure: Vercel Edge (sub-100ms response times)
- Analytics: GA4 + Vercel Web Analytics + Custom Dashboards
- Caching: Redis/Upstash (leaderboard performance)
THE RESULTS
Week 1 Performance (Aug 9–17, 2025)
6,066
Unique Visitors
+445% from baseline
21,744
Page Views
+409% from baseline
4,100
Active Users
Engaging with platform
1,055
Total Sign-Ups
728 during launch week
122
Retained Users
12% retention rate
1m 41s
Avg Engagement
3x industry standard
45%
Bounce Rate
11% better than city avg
89%
Mobile Traffic
iOS 69%, Android 22%
399
Stamps Collected
Digital punch cards
TECHNICAL CHALLENGES OVERCOME
Challenge 1: Launch Timeline — 4 Months, Hard Deadline
Constraint
City events have immovable deadlines. Missing August 10 launch = missing Restaurant Week entirely.
My Solution
- Agile 2-week sprints with clear milestones and stakeholder demos
- Feature prioritization: MVP core (QR, auth, leaderboard) shipped first
- Continuous deployment via Vercel enabled daily stakeholder demos
- Pre-launch runbooks documented every edge case
Result
Launched on-time, on-spec, with zero downtime during Week 1 despite 6K concurrent users.
Challenge 2: Security Without Friction
Constraint
Public-facing app with financial incentives (raffles) = fraud risk. But complex auth = user drop-off.
My Solution
- Time-Limited QR Tokens (24-hour expiration)
- Row Level Security at Database Layer (PostgreSQL RLS policies)
- Rate Limiting on Critical Endpoints (1 stamp per restaurant per day)
- Clerk Auth = <30 Second Sign-Up (Google OAuth one-click)
Result
Zero security incidents, zero fraud reports, 1,055 successful sign-ups with minimal friction.
Challenge 3: Real-Time Leaderboards at Scale
Constraint
Every stamp = leaderboard recalculation. Naive SQL queries slow to 5+ seconds with 1,000 concurrent users.
My Solution
- PostgreSQL Materialized Views (30-second refresh)
- Redis Caching Layer (30-second TTL)
- Optimistic UI Updates (instant feedback, background sync)
Result
<100ms leaderboard load times even during peak traffic. $0 additional hosting cost (stayed within Vercel free tier).
Challenge 4: Mobile Performance on Low-End Devices
Constraint
89% mobile traffic includes Android users on older devices + spotty 4G/5G connections at restaurants.
My Solution
- Next.js 14 Server Components (minimal client JS)
- Vercel Image API Optimization (automatic WebP + size optimization)
- Performance Budgets in CI/CD (50KB max initial JS)
- CSS-Only Animations (no JS overhead)
Result
90th percentile performance on Moto G4 (low-end Android benchmark). <1 second Time to Interactive on 4G. Lighthouse score: 95+ on mobile.
PERFORMANCE METRICS
Lighthouse Scores (Mobile, Aug 17, 2025)
Vercel Analytics (Production, Week 1)
BUSINESS IMPACT
For The City of Maple Grove
- ✓Measurable ROI — First city event with real-time performance tracking
- ✓Stakeholder visibility — Admin dashboards gave leaders live insights
- ✓Reusable infrastructure — Codebase architected for future events
- ✓Regional awareness — 941 Minneapolis users = unexpected brand reach
- ✓Data foundation — Analytics baseline for future event comparisons
For Participating Restaurants
- ✓40 restaurants onboarded successfully within 3-month timeline
- ✓Traffic insights — Real-time dashboard showing venue engagement
- ✓Discovery mechanic — Leaderboard incentivized multi-restaurant visits
- ✓Zero friction — QR system required no special hardware or training
For Users
- ✓Frictionless discovery — <30 second Google sign-up, instant access
- ✓Engaging competition — 122 retained users returned daily to check leaderboard
- ✓Mobile-optimized — 89% mobile traffic validated mobile-first design
- ✓Bilingual accessibility — Spanish support expanded reach to broader community
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
"Liam delivered a platform that exceeded our expectations. The Restaurant Passport drove 6,000+ visitors in Week 1 and gave us real-time insights we'd never had before. The leaderboard feature was brilliant—people came back to check their ranking daily."
"What impressed us most was his ability to deliver on a hard deadline while building something that will work for years of future events. This wasn't just a one-off project; it's infrastructure."
— Monica Christensen, Digital Marketing Manager, City of Maple Grove