Uptown Network Case Study

I took Manager App features from hospitality interviews to launch, then built the demos and content that sell them.

7features shipped across 5 apps

15+restaurant and club managers interviewed

5apps in the new acquisition funnel, with interactive demos

Problem statement

How might a guest experience platform fit the way venue managers actually work?

Uptown Network is a Guest Experience Architecture platform. Its users are wine directors, restaurant managers, sommeliers and club managers, people who run busy rooms and have little time for software that gets in the way.

The work had two halves: learn what slows managers down and design features that fix it, then show the platform clearly enough that a prospect can see the value in minutes.

The platform

One ecosystem, four layers.

1

Experience Layer

Uptown Digital Menus, Uptown Moments and Uptown Gifts, the guest-facing surface.

2

Operational Layer

The Guest Experience Manager App, where staff run the day.

3

Membership Layer

Collector's Reserve virtual wine lockers and the Personal Cellar Program.

4

Venue Media Layer

UptownAtmosphere.TV, channels and schedules for the room itself.

The Artuzan Manager App home screen on a phone: tiles for Wine List & Menus, Collector's Reserve, Wine Inventory, Guest Notes, Uptown TV, Uptown Gifts, Moments, Devices, Messages and Wish List — The Manager App home, shown under Artuzan, part of Uptown Network's repositioned product suite.

Research

Interviews turned operational pain points into requirements.

I interviewed 15+ restaurant and club managers in 45-minute sessions about the friction in their day, benchmarked industry leaders Toast and InVintory against Uptown's management tools, and translated what I heard into product requirements the team could build against.

Product design

Manager App features, designed, prototyped and shipped.

Across the work I shipped 7 features from UX research and prototyping across 5 apps, including Manager, Wine Locker and Gift.

Onboarding that gets a venue running quickly.
Search that finds guests, wines and requests.
Messaging and notifications that keep staff in sync.
Secure login for shared devices on a busy floor.

Secure login and a consume-at-table flow

Uptown Manager login screen with username, password, Login button and Log-In with Face ID — Manager App login, with Face ID.

Six wireframes of the Consume at Table flow: your wines list, wine detail, a Consume Wine confirmation, a notify-your-server message, wines pending and wine consumed — Consume at Table, wireframes: browse a locker, request a bottle, confirm, notify the server, then record the consumption.

Interactive demos

Click-through demos that let prospects try the platform.

I built a React demo for each product, designed for sales conversations: guided steps, short tooltips and a clear end card.

Collector's Reserve: a 26-step, three-act walkthrough across the iPad menu, the member web app and the Manager App.
Uptown Atmosphere TV: a channel-building flow on a laptop and playback on a TV frame.
Uptown Digital Menus: a 12-step iPad walkthrough for a fictional venue, Maison Fable, from the home menu to events and ticketing.
The Manager App demo went through six iterations, matched to the platform's blue and navy system.

Collector's Reserve product demo on an iPad frame, step 3 of 24: Open a Bottle, over a grid of wine bottles — Collector's Reserve demo, step 3 of 24: open a bottle from the iPad wine grid.

Launch marketing

Demos, a press release and a steady content rhythm.

For a new launch I led a full set of product demos and the press release, and built the content system that kept the ecosystem in front of its audience.

A 30-day LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook calendar for the launch, posting Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with each week tied back to the guest experience ecosystem.
Single-image graphics in an Azure Blue glassmorphism style, in LinkedIn portrait format.
Captions in the platform's own vocabulary, written for wine directors and club managers.

Launch teaser: something new is coming, June 22, 2026.

Infographic: The Wine Locker guest journey, with before, during and after stops along a road — Launch graphic: the guest journey, before, during and after.

Results

From research to launch, and the story to sell it.

7features shipped across 5 apps

15+manager interviews, 45 minutes each

Ongoingengagement since Mar 2025