Henderson Brewing Co.
Craft brewery / event venue · Toronto, GTA
The Sterling Room books 300 guests through eventsathenderson.ca while your beer shop and taproom reservations live on two completely separate systems - is that split intentional?
Why they need it
Henderson operates a genuinely large private event space - the Sterling Room holds 300 for cocktails or 150 for dinner - but it's booked through a separate branded microsite (eventsathenderson.ca) that has nothing to do with their beer shop or taproom reservations. A prospective corporate client booking the Sterling Room, buying a beer subscription, and reserving a taproom table today touches three unrelated systems and three separate account records. Building one events + reservations + shop customer portal would let event leads self-serve availability and deposits, let the brewery cross-sell event bookers into the beer club, and give staff one dashboard instead of three logins. Adding shipping/delivery checkout to the currently pickup-only Shopify store would also open online sales beyond walk-in customers, which is presently the store's biggest visible ceiling on revenue.
Tech gaps
Online store only supports in-store pickup, no shipping/delivery option, capping their online sales radius; the 300-capacity Sterling Room event space is booked through a totally separate branded subdomain disconnected from both the shop and the taproom reservation page - three systems with no shared customer record
Current tech
Shopify shop (shophendersonbrewing.com) for pickup-only beer/merch orders, a separate 'Events at Henderson' booking microsite (eventsathenderson.ca) for their 300-guest Sterling Room, and a distinct taproom dining reservations page
Selling a portal + ops tool
PlaybookA customer-facing portal and the internal tool behind it, built together so the data is entered once.
- Lead with whichever side hurts more today; the other side is phase two.
- One data model means the customer sees exactly what the office sees.
Objections (1)
- “That is a big project.”
- It is two small ones in a row. You see the first working before you commit to the second.