Coastal tasting room · Santa Barbara, California
SEREIN
A tasting room that loses its light as you scroll.
The brief
A thirty-seat room serving ten courses at $210, one seating a night, beginning as the sun reaches the water. The site had to sell anticipation rather than convenience, and it had to make a stranger feel the room before booking it.
The Opening, with the signature treatment
Three decisions
01
The hero is a film the guest scrubs
Three graded frames of one composition dissolve from golden hour through dusk into candlelight while the camera dollies in, so the page darkens exactly the way dinner does. It resolves into a conventional, clickable hero, and a guest who arrives ready to book can reserve from the first frame.
02
The clock is the sun, and it is real
Every seating time on the site, including each date in the reservation calendar, is computed from the actual Santa Barbara sunset. No API, no data feed, no maintenance: the hour moves with the season on its own.
03
A members' circle, not a loyalty scheme
The Blue Hour gives the room recurring revenue and a waitlist, with dues credited against what members eat. It carries its own accent within the same house type, so it reads as a sibling brand rather than a page.
What is in it
- Cinematic hero in two engines, plus a still frame under reduced motion
- Reservation flow with live sunset-driven availability
- Membership brand, three tiers, request flow
- No JavaScript animation libraries; transform and opacity only
A concept room, not a client. Built by the studio to show the work.