Design, hospitality and technology for restaurants, from a working chef.
One house with three branches: brands, menus and websites; hospitality consulting from a chef-owner; and a custom system for the guest-facing site and everything behind the pass, designed for one restaurant at a time. Yours. The first one runs Eden in Syracuse every night.
No two restaurants run the same way. Their brand, their service and their software shouldn’t either.
One house · three branches
Design. Hospitality. Technology.
Each branch takes the same two squares and gives them its own shape. That is the idea behind a responsive identity: a brand built as a set of rules instead of one frozen logo, so it can answer the work, the season and the service.
An example of a responsive identity: this site's own mark. Try it.
THE MARK · HOUSE43.0481° N, 76.1474° W
strubcreativeone house
Less on the plate. More in the room.
Branch
The house mark: two signal squares in place of the dots of the ü.
strubdesign01
01 · Design
Design that lives in the room.
Your brand should feel like walking through your own front door. Logos, menus, websites and signage are designed to match the look and feel of your business: its room, its food, its pace and the people it serves, so every piece reads as unmistakably yours. Rich trained in graphic design at Champlain College before he cooked for a living, so the design comes from someone who knows both sides of the pass.
edencny.com
Eden's homepage. The line along the bottom reads the restaurant's real fire schedule, so the page answers the week: one example of a responsive identity.
edencny.com · Tonight's menu
Every dish names its farm and opens that farm's story and map.
The idea
Responsive identity
Most restaurant brands are a logo frozen on the day it was approved. A responsive identity is designed as a system instead: a fixed core, and a set of rules for how it answers the world around it. The restaurant changes every night. Its brand can keep up.
A core that never moves. The name, the type, the colors, the shape of the mark. In every form it is still recognizably you.
Inputs that are real. The season, the hour, whether the doors are open, tonight's menu, the event in the room, the part of the business it speaks for.
Rules, not decoration. Each change means something and follows a rule your team can learn, so nothing feels random and nothing drifts off brand.
Room to grow. New expressions are added as the business grows, without starting over with a redesign.
Two examples you can see now: Eden's homepage carries a line that reads the restaurant's real fire schedule, and the squares in this site's logo take a different shape for each branch as you read. Try them.
Brand identity
Name, mark, palette and type for a restaurant, bar or farm, built to read at a glance across a dining room.
Responsive identity
A brand designed as a system: a core that never moves, and rules for how it answers the season, the hour and the room.
Menu design
Print and screen menus from one source, so the paper menu, the website and the table tablets never disagree.
Websites
Designed for your room, with any of the features from the Technology branch switched on.
Print and signage
Cards, labels, gift cards, wine lists and the signs on the door.
strubhospitality02
02 · Hospitality
Hospitality, from the pass.
Rich has worked in kitchens since he was fourteen and has run Eden as chef and owner since 2019. The Hospitality branch brings that to your house, by the day or by the project.
Menu consulting
A chef's eye on your menu: how it reads, how it flows through the kitchen and how it changes with the seasons. Plus the tools to cost it, set pars and keep it current yourself, quickly.
Openings and service
Strategies for communicating clearly with your team, so everyone knows exactly what they own before, during and after service: defined roles and stations, a pre-shift structure, opening and closing checklists, and the right channel for every message.
Farm and producer sourcing
Introductions and ordering rhythms with Central New York growers, the way Eden works with about twenty-five of them.
Events and private dining
A program from the first inquiry to the BEO: packages, bar pricing, questionnaires and the follow-through.
Food safety and HACCP
ROP plans, temperature logs and records ready for the inspector. See Eden's ROP plan.
Reinvention
When the room has to change, the way Eden became a farm-to-door service for local growers in 2020.
strubtechnology03
03 · Technology
Software, made to order.
Not a template, and not an app you rent and work around. Each system is designed for one restaurant: its stations, its roles, its menu rhythm, its paperwork and its words for things. The site your guests see and the tools your staff use are both built around how you run.
01
We learn your house
A service worked or walked with you: stations, roles, how orders and paper move, and what keeps you up at night.
02
Front and back, designed
The guest site in your brand. The staff side shaped around your roles, your prep, your vendors and your language.
03
Only what you need
Features are chosen à la carte and switched on one by one. Nothing you'll never use clutters the screen.
04
Built for what only you do
The parts no off-the-shelf product has, written for your house: your rules, your forms, your inspector.
05
It grows with you
New features as the restaurant changes, tested in a working kitchen before they ship.
Built only for Eden
A homepage line that reads the restaurant's fire schedule
ROP plan logs for its own vacuum-sealed proteins, its own probe thermometer and its inspector's printout
An end-of-day report that won't send until the closing lists are done, then emails each server their card tips
Story windows and maps for the farms it actually buys from
A BEO with its own bar packages, venues and contract terms
None of it came from a template. Your system will have its own list.
The system
Every station, one system.
Menu
Change a dish or a price once. The website and table menus on iPad or any tablet update within seconds, and a print-ready menu is ready when you are.
Schedule
Build the week, publish it, and text each person their shifts. Time-off requests land in one place.
Prep list
Built from tonight's live menu, with pars, so the kitchen starts every shift on the same page.
Inventory
Count what's on hand and get the order list by vendor, with value on hand worked out for you.
Temps
Wireless sensors in every cooler and freezer. Live readings, alerts when one runs warm, and a log ready for the inspector.
Events
Inquiry, questionnaire, BEO, done. Bar packages and tax-exempt forms included, and every email with the guest saved on the event.
Financials
Drop in the week's sales and timecards. Revenue, payroll cost and labor percentage, week by week.
Real screens from Eden's staff site, shown with sample data.
03 · Technology · Eden, Syracuse
Eden, Syracuse.
An entirely wood-fired, farm-to-table restaurant in Hanover Square, and the first kitchen to run on the Strüb system.
edencny-staff.com · Menu & Supper Club
Eden's menu editor, with the real menu. Edits publish to the website and table iPads within seconds.
Website
Menu, private events, a 10-step catering planner with a live estimate, and partner stories with engraved maps, linked from the dishes they supply
Wine list
205 bottles, searchable and browsable by region, style and map, with a note on every bottle
Closing
The end-of-day report can't be submitted until the manager on duty has checked every closing list. Once it is, each server is emailed their credit card tips for the day
Back office
Today dashboard, schedule, prep and bar lists, inventory, recipes, calendar, pre-shift, end-of-day reports, temperature logs, payroll and financials
Events
Inquiry to questionnaire to BEO, with every email to the guest saved on the event
Kitchen
A wall touchscreen with tonight's covers, prep progress, checklists, cooler temperatures, calibration reminders and the two-week calendar
03 · Technology · Permanent beta
New at Eden this month.
The system is never finished. These shipped at Eden in the last two weeks, and every one can be switched on for your business.
edencny.com · Our partners
Every partner card opens its story and an engraved map, and dishes on the menu link to the farm that grew them.
Temperature logs
Wireless sensors in the coolers and freezer report every few minutes. A unit is only flagged after 30 minutes out of range, so a delivery doesn't set it off.
ROP plan records
Weekly thermometer calibration reminders, the ice-bath check logged, and the ROP log printed for the health inspector. See how it works.
Financials and payroll
Drop in the week's Square timecards and sales. Out come hours, the payroll company's invoice estimate, and labor percentage over time.
Bar packages in the BEO
Open bar pricing, signature cocktails, toasts, alcohol-free events and tax-exempt forms, carried from the guest's questionnaire into the BEO and onto the calendar.
Wine search
Guests search 205 bottles on the website and the table iPads, and every wine and spirit opens a short note.
Partner stories
Every farm and producer gets a story window and an engraved map, edited from the staff site.
Business email, tidied
Pick many emails at once to move or delete, and sign-offs that follow whoever's mailbox it is.
03 · Technology · ROP plan
The ROP plan, tracked for you.
Vacuum-sealing proteins in house, known as reduced oxygen packaging (ROP), takes a written HACCP plan and records a health inspector can check. Eden's plan, written for the Onondaga County Health Department, covers raw beef, pork, chicken, duck, fish and scallops, held at 41°F or colder for up to 30 days from sealing, or frozen. The staff site keeps those records without a clipboard on the wall.
The plan asks forWhat the system does on its own
Cold holding at 41°F, or frozen
Wireless sensors in the protein cooler and the freezer report every few minutes. The two ROP units are marked in setup and always sit first, on their own row, for the cooks and the inspector.
Corrective action when a unit runs warm
A unit is flagged only after 30 minutes out of range, measured reading by reading, so a delivery or a defrost doesn't cry wolf. Then it asks what was done and files the answer against that unit and time.
A weekly ice-bath check of the probe thermometer
Seven days after the last good check, a reminder appears on the staff site, a red bar runs across the kitchen Hub and Temps shows a badge until someone logs it. A reading more than 2° off 32°F won't save without what was done about it, and asks for a recheck.
Records the inspector can read
One button prints the month's ROP log: each day's low and high for the ROP units, readings taken by hand, corrective actions, and the Thermometer validation log with every check and who did it.
Records you can trust
Duplicate readings are never saved. If the live feed drops, the logger's own export fills the gap, converted to °F. Every entry carries the name of the person who made it.
Temperatures · calibration due, ROP units firstKitchen Hub · the reminder no one can missThermometer validation log · prints with the monthMonthly ROP log · ready to print for the Health Department
Real screens from Eden's staff site and kitchen Hub, shown with sample readings.
03 · Technology · The menu
À la carte.
Choose the features you want switched on; everything else stays off until you need it. Each one is shaped for your house rather than copied from Eden, and anything that isn't on this menu can be built. The site your guests see and the software your staff use are both made around your brand, your room, your roles and the way you run service.
Every order starts with
The Foundation
Custom design for the front and the back, staff logins by role, a full change history, hosting, security and support.
I
From the dining room
What your guests see.
II
From the kitchen
What your team uses every shift.
III
From the office
What keeps the business running.
0features selected
Tap anything above to build your order. Add more any time.
Logo, palette, type and menu design, from someone trained in graphic design who writes menus for a living. The Design branch
02 · Hospitality
Hospitality consulting
Menu consulting, openings, sourcing, events and food safety, by the day. The Hospitality branch
Now booking
Founding clients
Three Central New York restaurants will launch at founding rates in exchange for a case study. Ask about the remaining spots.
Process
From first tasting to service
One client at a time, so every launch gets a chef's attention.
01
Tasting
A walk-through of your restaurant, your current tools and what slows your team down. Dinner at Eden to see the system in use.
02
Mise en place
Your brand, your menu and your staff list go in. We set up your domain, email, roles and permissions.
03
Service
Launch, with simple guides built into the system so managers and staff can pick it up on their own.
04
Family meal
Hosting, updates, support and small changes every month. New features reach you as they're built.
04
About
Chef Rich Strub
Founder · Chef and owner of Eden
At the pass, Eden, Syracuse
Rich has worked in restaurant kitchens since he was fourteen, most of those years in Vermont, where he cooked at a farm-to-table restaurant and teaching facility. Along the way he earned a degree in graphic design from Champlain College.
In Syracuse he built Eden by hand inside the city's first steel building, from the eight-ton hearth to nearly every piece of furniture. Since opening in 2019 as chef and owner, he has cooked everything over live fire, written menus that change with what the farms bring in, kept in touch with about twenty-five Central New York growers, and built a wine list that pours international bottles alongside a large selection of New York State wines, with New York highlighted by the glass.
When dining rooms closed in 2020, Eden didn't wait. Rich turned the restaurant into a farm-to-door service, building New York State farm boxes of vegetables and protein. Each week Eden picked up from farms across Central New York and its own team made contactless deliveries, so growers who had lost their restaurant sales still had buyers.
In kitchens
Since age 14, Vermont to Syracuse
Design
Graphic design, Champlain College
Eden
Chef and owner since 2019, wood-fired and farm-to-table
2020
Pivoted to farm-box delivery for local growers during COVID
Recognition
Empire Award, New York State Senate, 2021Wine Spectator Restaurant Award, 2022 through 2026DiRōNA Award of Excellence, 2025 and 2026Friends of James Beard Benefit dinner, 2026
Strüb Creative brings design, hospitality and technology into one house: the eye of a designer, the habits of a chef who kept a restaurant running through a shutdown, and the tools he built to run it every night.
For
Who we work with
Independent restaurants
Chef-driven dining rooms of 30 to 150 seats across Central New York and the Finger Lakes.
Wineries and craft beverage
Tasting rooms, cideries, breweries and distilleries with events and a list to show off.
Event venues and caterers
Businesses that live on inquiries, questionnaires and BEOs.
Small restaurant groups
Two to five locations that need one back office.
Farms and food makers
Growers and producers who want a site as good as what they make.
05
Contact
Start a project
Tell us about your place. We'll reply within one business day and set up a time to talk, or a dinner at Eden.
