We put real ad traffic through every page, photo and button, and kept only what sold. Now it takes paid orders around the clock, with no delivery app taking a cut.
Built and run at Buon Cibo by Tom Tarantino and Ezra Gonzalez
Morning. The homepage opens on the pastry case.
Buon Cibo opened in February 2026 with no online orders. Now its website sells preorder dinners, event tickets, meal plans and catering, while the kitchen is busy and after the doors close. Here’s what that adds up to.
So: Sales the deli didn’t have before, paid before the kitchen cooks.
So: New people keep finding it, not just the regulars.
So: Bigger carts, and nobody on staff had to ask.
So: Most of the money comes from people who came back.
Source: Buon Cibo’s online orders, March to October 2026
The top of Buon Cibo’s homepage promotes whatever sells right now: through the day, as the phone at the top of this page shows, and through the week, where the next deadline always leads. Below it, everything else stays on sale around the clock.
A new dinner every week, sold ahead. Pickup runs in 20-minute slots, each with a cap, so the line never backs up and the kitchen is never buried.
200+ dinners from a single Friday, sold as dinners for two and all paid before the kitchen cooked
$35 for two · order by Thursday 8 PM
Takes over the homepage the moment Friday dinner closes, with a deadline of its own, so there’s always something to order ahead.
$35 for two · order by Saturday 8 PM
Five or seven meals from a weekly menu, packed cold to reheat at home. Sold as a plan, never one at a time, so every order starts bigger.
5 meals $75 · 7 meals $85
A seated dinner night with its own menu and a live seat count. Every seat is paid for before the kitchen cooks.
$85 a seatAn example night of website orders at Buon Cibo while the shop is closed: 8:15 PM, Friday Dinner for Two with Caesar salad for two, $47.00; 9:38 PM, Friday Dinner for Two with Chocolate cake, $44.99; 10:52 PM, 2 event tickets, $170.00; 11:17 PM, 2 Friday Dinners for Two with Cannoli cake, $79.99; 12:17 AM, Friday Dinner for Two, $35.00; 4:19 AM, Friday Dinner for Two with Caesar salad for two, $47.00; 7:13 AM, Heat & Eat, 7 meals, $85.00; 8:30 AM, Heat & Eat, 5 meals, $75.00. At 9 AM the doors open with every one of them already paid.
An example night: real overnight order times and dishes, at menu prices.
Nobody is behind the counter, and the website keeps taking money: after dinner, in the middle of the night and before work. The homepage counts down to opening, and right below it every preorder, ticket and meal plan is a tap away. The kitchen opens to orders that are already paid.
A brochure tells people you exist, then sends them somewhere else to pay. A register takes the money. Four differences do the earning.
Preorders and tickets close at a cutoff, so the kitchen cooks to a count it already knows.
Web orders print in the kitchen through Square, just like counter orders.
In two taps, a $35 Friday dinner becomes a $56.99 order.
Every order adds a name to your list, so the next email and the next ad can bring them back.
Finding a new customer costs money. Adding dessert to an order that’s already in the cart costs nothing. So every buyer sees the extras twice before paying, once where they choose the meal and once in the cart, and every main dish is sold bigger by default: dinners for two, plans of five or seven meals.
A Friday dinner has “Complete the dinner” right under the pickup time, and on a phone the buy bar stops there first. A Heat & Eat plan ends with a dessert tile. Real products at real prices, one tap each.
Extras are offered once more, tied to the meal they ride with, so the kitchen packs them in the same bag.
preorder dinner orders add a salad, a dessert, or both: $10 to $22 more on each of those carts, without anyone on staff asking.
Source: Buon Cibo’s Shopify orders since late September 2026
Want a store that sells like this? Meet Tom and Ezra for 30 minutes to an hour, on a call or in person. You’ll leave knowing what we’d sell first.
Book a callEvery page asks for an email, and every signup is tagged by what the visitor was looking at. Buon Cibo sends one or two emails a week, each selling something with a date. Here is every one from the last 30 days.
Source: Shopify’s report for each of Buon Cibo’s emails in the last 30 days. Sales are what Shopify credits to each email, rounded down.
When someone buys, the store records what sent them: an ad, an email or a post. So you stop guessing, and the next dollar goes to whatever is actually selling. It’s also where every number on this page comes from.
A Friday dinner ad shows up on Instagram on a Thursday evening.
Dinner for two and a tiramisu, paid in a few taps.
The $44.99 is credited to that ad, in Meta and in the store’s own reports. Emails and posts are tracked the same way.
in sales for every dollar spent on ads in October.
So: More of the budget goes to the ads that bring back the most.
in ads per order in the best week of October: about $4 to bring back a regular, about $10 to find someone new.
So: Each runs as its own campaign, with its own budget.
of online sales come from two programs: the Friday dinner and event tickets.
So: They lead the homepage and most of the emails.
Sources: Meta Ads Manager, October 2026, and Buon Cibo’s online orders, March to October 2026
Clear the Plate is Tom Tarantino and Ezra Gonzalez. Tom is an award-winning restaurant owner with more than 30 years in San Diego food and family roots in Little Italy. Ezra helped shape Buon Cibo’s concept and brand, then built its website, marketing, ads and email list, and still runs every one of them. Nothing we sell is theory: every part was built and proven at Buon Cibo first.
Tom has run restaurants, a deli and a market in San Diego for more than 30 years. On your store he decides what’s worth selling ahead: the dish, the portion, the price, and how many your kitchen can make well on a busy night.
Ezra started with Tom a year before Buon Cibo opened and built its selling side from nothing: the concept and brand with Tom, then the website, the marketing plan, the ads and the email list. He still runs every one of them and reads the numbers every week.
You talk to us directly. One of us leads, the other steps in for their specialty. No account team in between.
A few simple steps, and you’re in charge at every one. You’ll have the plan and the price in writing before anything starts.
The three of us meet for 30 minutes to an hour, on a call or in person: what you sell, what your kitchen can take on, and whether a website like this makes sense for you. If it doesn’t, we’ll say so.
Who: You and Tom and EzraYour menu, prices, kitchen, and any website or online ordering you use now. Then we pick what to sell ahead first: the dish, the night and how many you can make.
Who: Tom and EzraWhat we’ll build, what you’ll do, and the price. Nothing starts until you say yes.
Who: Tom and EzraYour menu, photos, pickup times and add-ons, plus the tracking that shows what sells, tested on phones and computers before anyone sees it.
Who: EzraYou see every page before it goes live. We show your team how to run it, then help through the launch.
Who: You and Tom and EzraChange the dish, date, price or sold out yourself: they’re settings, not code. Or keep us on to run the ads, emails and weekly numbers.
Who: YouA store like this sells what your kitchen can make ahead. That takes the right food, some room in the week, and someone to keep it current.
Two ways to build it. The Launch site sells your programs on the layout that works at Buon Cibo. The custom build is made from scratch for everything else you run: catering, events and tools of your own.
Built to sell your programs, on the layout that sells at Buon Cibo, in your brand.
Designed from scratch around everything you run, the way we built Buon Cibo’s.
Not sure which? Selling one or two programs ahead, like a weekly dinner? Start with the Launch site. Running catering and events, or want something built just for you, like a wine list? The custom build. We’ll tell you which on the call.
Get your written pricePreorder dinners, event tickets and meal plans that didn’t exist before the site, all paid before the kitchen cooks. That’s sales, not profit, and your numbers will be your own. You pay Shopify and card fees directly, and we never take a percentage of what you sell.
Start with the 90-day launch: one landing page for one program, like a Friday dinner, beside your current site, with every sale tracked, ads, a weekly email and a weekly numbers report. At day 90 you decide what’s next, with real numbers in hand.
We can’t promise that, and nobody honest can. Buon Cibo’s numbers come from its food, its neighborhood and a lot of weekly work. What we promise is a store built around your kitchen and clear reporting on what it sells.
About 45 days for the Launch site and 60 for a custom build, counted from when we have your menu, prices and photos. You’ll have the timeline in writing before you sign, and you see every page before it goes live.
Most of it comes at the start: a closer look at your menu, prices and costs, then approving the pages. After launch, one person on your team keeps the week current, and we train them to do it.
No. Buon Cibo runs Shopify online and Square in the store. On the first call we look at what you use and tell you what connects.
No. The price is set in writing. You pay Shopify and card processing directly, and you own the store, the domain and the customer list.
You can: the dish, date, price and sold out are settings, not code. Or keep us on to run the ads, the emails and the weekly numbers. Either way, the store stays yours.
Not always. To start with one program, the 90-day launch adds a single landing page beside your current site, with every sale tracked, and runs the ads to it. The full store is for when you want everything in one place.
30 minutes to an hour with Tom and Ezra, on a call or in person. No sales deck. You’ll leave knowing what we’d sell first, and if a store like this doesn’t make sense for you, we’ll say so.
Buon Cibo is our founding example, not a client portfolio, and we don’t promise the same results or timeline.
