Three months of social media management for PJs Restaurant & Hostel in Groningen: a feed system, a tone of voice, an editorial calendar and 50+ posts and reels, built to finally match the place itself.

The story

PJs Restaurant & Hostel reached out directly, having seen the same energy applied to other places, and wanted it for their own accounts. That mattered: every project before PJs had started from scratch — building a brand from zero, designing it, launching it. PJs was different. The place already worked. The kitchen, the rooms, the vibe were all already there.

They weren’t asking for something new to be invented. They were asking for something that already existed to be taken care of. A different kind of trust, and a different kind of job.

The challenge

PJs already had an Instagram, and posted regularly — but scrolling through the feed, you couldn’t tell what made the place different. Stock-feeling photos, inconsistent typography, captions that could have been written by anyone, for any restaurant, in any city.

The hostel had character. The bar had personality. The kitchen had a point of view. None of that came through online. The brief wasn’t growth — it was identity, making the social presence finally look and sound like the place itself.

The approach

The work split into two halves that needed to talk to each other. Visual: a tighter color system, a recognizable photo style, layout templates that worked across post formats — the same energy on every grid square, recognizable from a thumbnail before you even read the caption.

Verbal: a specific tone for PJs that wasn’t generic hospitality talk — direct, warm, a little dry, the kind of voice you’d actually hear if you walked in for a drink. No “we’re delighted to announce” energy, no emoji-as-personality. Together, they made the feed feel like the place, not like a marketing department.

The thinking

Brand identity isn’t always invention. Sometimes it’s stewardship. Every project before PJs was about building something that didn’t exist yet — PJs was the first time someone handed over something already working and asked for it to be taken care of.

That changes the job. You’re not designing for ego, or chasing portfolio shots — you’re trying to make every post look exactly like the place feels, which means actually knowing the place, not just photographing it. Three months of that taught more about brand voice than three years of building brands from scratch ever had.

Deliverables

• Visual identity — a consistent color palette, photo treatment and post template system that made every grid square feel intentionally PJs
• Tone of voice — a specific PJs voice, warm and direct, never generic, applied across every post, story and reel
• Content — 50+ posts and reels across three months of weekly publishing, spanning post formats, stories and short-form video
• Strategy — a weekly editorial calendar tied to events, weekend offerings and seasonal moments at the restaurant and hostel
• Growth — monthly profile reach scaled from 21K to 80K views during the active management period

Results

• 3 months of active management
• 50+ posts and reels published
• 80K monthly profile views, up from 21K

PJs Restaurant & Hostel closed its doors not long after the project ended, for reasons that had nothing to do with the work. What’s left is a snapshot of three months when the social presence finally matched the place — a specific voice, a consistent feed, a real online identity for a real restaurant.