The Lekumberry family has run the J.T. in Gardnerville since 1960. The building goes back to 1896: a saloon, hotel, and dining hall, now a Basque dining room that's been voted best in the Carson Valley for over a decade. The Picon Punch became Nevada's official state drink in 2025, with the J.T. at the center of that story.
The site they had was an old HTML build with no way for the team to update it themselves. Customers were checking the site for hours and menus and finding information that had been out of date for years. The goal was to bring the digital side up to the standard of the place itself, and to hand the keys to the team so it would stay current.
// 01 — CONDITIONS
Conditions.
// Redesign with a job
A redesign that carries the Basque feel with a modern touch. Information the customer can find at a glance: hours, menus, where to go. A site the team can update themselves. Photography. Video.
// 02 — PRINCIPLE
Principle.
Make it theirs to keep telling.
// 03 — THE BUILD
The build.
// Built around their edits
I built the site with the family’s edits in mind from the first wireframe. The editable parts are scoped to the fields that actually need to change such as menus, hours, prices. Everything else holds.
Then we shot it. Full menu and the building, on-site, over a few days. The owner knew exactly what the hero should be: the bartender making a Picon Punch. I shot, edited, and made ready for web.
// 04 — PHOTOGRAPHY
04 Photography.
// Inside and out
Food and cocktails for the menus, yes. They also wanted to capture the building and the room, the feel of a place that has been theirs since 1960.
-
JT exterior at night.
The 1896 building, restored facade. -
Picon Punch on the bar.
The official state drink of Nevada, as of 2025. -
House hats on the back bar.
The logo started as a patron’s caricature on a napkin. -
Nevada Burger.
Grass-fed beef, raised on the family ranch in Genoa.
// 05 — THE LONG VIEW
The long view.
// Still running
I set it up to need no ongoing maintenance or updates from me. That has held true.
- ROLE
- Design, build, photography, video.
- YEAR
- 2023.
- STATUS
- Live. Hands-off.
We desperately needed an upgrade to our website. Working with Lea completely changed how we interact with our customers online. She took all our ideas and helped us formulate a site that not only gets the information we need to the customers, but is genuine and truly represents who we are!