Corner Table

The question

How do you become a regular in a city you've never been to?

Corner Table is a hospitality network that connects regulars with the people behind their favourite venues — so they can discover their favourite spots' favourite spots, anywhere in the world. We took it from a founder's notebook sketch to a developer-ready app.

Role

Product Designer

Team

Overspace design team, the founder and two developers

Timeline

2024 — 2025 · 1 year

Platform

iOS app and landing page

Client

Corner Table

Studio

Overspace

Services

PRODUCT DESIGN
DESIGN SYSTEM
PROTOTYPING
LANDING PAGE

screens designed and prototyped across two user roles: 155screens designed and prototyped across two user roles
audiences in one app: Regulars and hospitality Insiders: 2audiences in one app: Regulars and hospitality Insiders
Corner Table regulars tested the app before handoff: 10Corner Table regulars tested the app before handoff

Context

In hospitality, the best recommendations come from people who work in it: a bartender knows where other bartenders drink. Corner Table turns that word of mouth into a network. Regulars connect with industry insiders, insiders vouch for their best guests, and everyone discovers venues through people they trust.

The product grew out of Corner Table Restaurants, a New York hospitality group running restaurants since 2001. We worked with the founder for a year through Overspace — from a sketch in a notebook to a full app, design system and landing page, handed off to two developers.

Tools: Figma, Dropbox Paper, Trello and Slack.

Corner Table welcome, home, city and venue screens — Welcome, Home, a city, and a venue where you're a regular

Problem and business goals

Hospitality runs on relationships, but nothing was built around them. Finding a great place in a new city depends on knowing the right people, and being a regular stops at your own neighbourhood. The founder wanted an app where trust travels through people — and it had to serve two very different audiences at once.

Business and product goals

01Ship an MVP for Regulars first, then extend it to industry Insiders
02Grow the network through invites: QR code, SMS, email and short links
03Give venues one place to manage their profile, staff and regulars
04Build a reusable design system so new roles and screens are fast to design and build

User goals

01Regulars: find great venues anywhere through people I trust
02Regulars: be recognised as a regular at the places I love — and message them directly
03Insiders: vouch for my best guests and invite them in
04Insiders: manage my venues, staff and regulars

Discovery

The project started with the founder's own sketch of global search and a long list of ideas. Before designing anything, we turned them into a shared scoping document — every screen, its contents and open questions — and refined it together with the founder in comments.

Users

Regulars
Diners and travellers who want the regular treatment wherever they are. They search cities and venues, connect with insiders, and message venues directly.
Insiders
People who work in hospitality — owners, managers, bartenders, servers — verified by their venue. They manage venues and staff, and invite and vouch for their regulars.

Research

Founder's sketch and idea list: Search is the front door: one autocomplete for cities, venues and people, with room to connect or message without clutter.
Screen-by-screen scoping document: Every screen defined before design, with decisions made in comments — for example, a single notification switch versus advanced settings per notification type.
Venue role mapping: Insiders aren't one persona: we designed for the real roles in a venue — owner, general manager, bar manager, floor manager, host, server and bartender.

What we learned

01Trust is the currency — every venue shows who in your network endorses it
02Insiders need everything Regulars have, plus venue management
03Growth comes from invites — one QR code connects existing users or sends new ones to the App Store
04Being a regular is a status venues grant — so it needs an application and approval flow

Pencil sketch of a phone screen with a search autocomplete panel listing cities, venues and people — Where it started: the founder's first sketch of global search, March 2024

Problem definition

01Finding a great place in a new city depends on knowing the right people — and most diners don't.
02Being a regular doesn't travel: recognition stops at your home venues.
03Venues have no simple way to recognise, invite and vouch for their best guests.
04Two audiences with different needs must share one coherent app.

From problem to solution

We phased the work: Regulars first, Insiders second. Once the design system and core screens were established, Insider screens reused the same components — which kept the second phase small.

The information architecture rests on four tabs — Home, Cities, Venues and My Network — with Inbox and Profile always one tap away. Onboarding branches on a single question: “Do you work in hospitality?”

Feature priorities

PhaseFeatureWhy

Phase 1Global search across cities, venues and peopleThe founder's sketch made it clear: search is how people arrive.

Phase 1City and venue pages with endorsementsShows who you know at each venue — the core of the product.

Phase 1My Network: connections, pending requests, suggestionsThe network is what makes recommendations trustworthy.

Phase 1Chat, group chat and CC a venueTurns a recommendation into a booking or a night out.

Phase 2Venue management for insidersPhotos, menus, staff and regulars — reusing Phase 1 components.

Phase 2Invites by QR code, SMS, email and linkInsiders bring their regulars in — the network's growth loop.

LaterVisit historyLogged as a feature idea and left out of the first version.

Use cases

Regular in a new city
Searches “Paris”, sees venues endorsed by people in their network, and messages one to book.
Regular at home
Applies to become a regular at a favourite bar; the venue approves or asks for more information.
Bartender
Invites a guest with a QR code and vouches for them with an endorsement.
Manager
Adds a new venue, uploads photos and menus, and manages staff and regulars.
Group of friends
Plans a night out in a group chat and CCs the venue so it can help.

Journeys, IA and flows

Onboarding branches on one question — insiders then pick the venues they work at

Search, cities, city and venues screens — Discovery: search, cities, a city's venues, and venues by location

Design

The visual language borrows from a good restaurant: warm paper tones, deep brown accents, rich photography of venues and drinks, and a classic wordmark. We explored ten typefaces and several colour directions before settling on it.

Design-system decisions

Colour tokens by role: Text, surface, border and icon tokens — screens reference roles, not hex values, so the theme can change globally.
Display, Body and Label type styles: Three families of styles cover everything from city names to fine print.
Components with states: Buttons, inputs, dropdowns, filters and content cards — Insider screens were assembled from the same parts.
One canvas: 393pt iPhone: A single, consistent screen size kept the MVP focused.

Corner Table components: buttons, inputs, content cards, icons, filters and dropdowns — Components: buttons, inputs, content cards, icons, filters and dropdowns

Four colour directions for the Home screen — Colour exploration

Early Cities concept with popular venues per city — An early Cities concept, explored before the final direction

Inbox, chat and group chat with a venue — Inbox and chat — including CC'ing a venue

Insider home, invite by QR code, and an endorsement — Insiders: my venues, invite by QR code, and endorsements

My Network and a regular's profile with endorsements

Ten typeface explorations for the app — Typeface exploration

Landing page for the hospitality industry — Landing page for the industry

Testing and iteration

Before handoff, the app was put in front of the people it's built for. The client organised a usability round with ten regulars of Corner Table Restaurants in New York, and the founder walked us through their feedback on a debrief call.

The feedback pointed to three gaps between finding a place and actually going there. We added three features to the build before it was handed to the developers.

How we tested

Usability round with 10 regulars: Ten regulars of Corner Table Restaurants in New York — the product's core audience — tried the app and gave feedback.
Founder debrief: The founder relayed the group's feedback to us on a call; we prioritised it together before changing the designs.

What we learned

01A recommendation is only useful if you can act on it — and acting on it meant leaving the app to call or text someone.
02Trust needs to be visible: people wanted to know who stands behind a venue or a regular, not just that it's listed.
03Text-only lists made venues hard to tell apart at a glance — and in hospitality, the look of a place is half the decision.

What changed

BeforeFinding a venue was a dead end — reaching it or the insider who recommended it happened outside the app
AfterMessaging: direct and group chats, with the option to CC a venue so it can help plan the visit
BeforeNo way to follow or vouch for people
AfterEndorsements: insiders vouch for venues and regulars, and every venue shows who in your network endorses it
BeforeVenue lists were text only
AfterA photo preview for every venue in lists and search results

Venue list with photo previews, a venue page with endorsements, and a group chat that CCs a venue — Added after testing: venue previews, endorsements and messaging

Outcome

We handed over a complete, developer-ready app — Regular and Insider flows, a clickable prototype, a component library and landing pages — built by the client's two developers. The landing page is live at cornertable.app; the public launch of the app is in the client's hands.

Shipped

—Regular and Insider app designs, end to end — 155 screens
—Design system: colour tokens, type styles and components
—Clickable Figma prototypes for both roles
—Landing pages for regulars and the industry — live at cornertable.app

Not shipped

—Visit history — logged as an idea, left out of the first version
—Public app launch — pending on the client's side

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