200+ locations. 20+ countries. 55+ locales. Single source of truth.

Le Pain Quotidien is a bakery-restaurant brand with more than 200 locations across 20 countries. Known for its communal tables, slow-fermentation breads, and seasonal menu, the brand has cultivated a distinct identity grounded in storytelling and craft. But until recently, that story had a few technical limitations coming in the way of being conveyed and doing it full justice.

Limitations that the fine folks over at November Five took care of.

So, to dive into what they got up to, we sat down with November Five's very own Stijn Symons (their Director of Architecture), and Vincent Pauwels (their Co-Founder).

Le Pain Quotidien had grown fast over the years. However, on the technical side, there was no reliable way to scale content consistently without duplication. The global content team was small, but the surface area they had to manage kept growing. Over time, quality drifted. Stories existed in some markets but not others. The web presence no longer reflected the care and consistency of the in‑store experience.

The challenge was not just to rebuild a website. It was to turn a fragmented digital estate into a single global platform that could carry their story consistently, while still allowing local teams to adapt content where it truly mattered.

But Le Pain Quotidien isn't just a chain, it's always been a story. And that story mattered. So November Five needed to make sure that everything about this project put storytelling at the center to balance out the brand's essence with as much importance as the technical side of things.

PS: For more insights into the process of building out this narrative‑first digital storefront for Le Pain Quotidien, head over to November Five's website →

The Human Layer

Before a single schema was touched, the team flew over to spend a day at the bakery.

No, Seriously. When we spoke, Stijn and Vincent and we were really vibing on the time, patience, and love that goes into the bread-making process.

The folks at November Five spent time at the atelier, watched how the bread was made, talked to staff, and took notes. Lots of notes. They saw what 33 hours of fermentation looked like. They asked questions about the communal table, about the history, about the recipes, and so much more. They tried to understand not just how Le Pain Quotidien operated, but what they believed.

That shaped everything that came after. It’s why the site doesn’t start with a promo or product grid. It opens with a poem and a loaf of bread. It's why there's no generic about page. There's an insight into the Atelier.

Its the little things.

We thought we needed an About page. After a day in the bakery, we said nope. What we need is an Atelier.

It’s also why the word "storefront" stuck. This wasn’t just a set of pages. It was an extension of the in-restaurant experience. It had to feel slow, warm, and thoughtful. Not transactional.

Even internal buy-in reflected that. Stakeholders weren’t shown mockups. They were shown meaning. And when they saw the first version of the homepage, a stripped-back space with no CTA, no menu button, just bread and philosophy, they got it.

Naturally, right after that, the panic set in.

Everyone loved the vision. Then came the fear. How the hell are we going to maintain this across 25 countries?

How the hell, indeed...

Bringing it all together

At the core of the solution is DatoCMS. Everything from the philosophy-driven blocks to the localizations and assets are structured and managed in a single project.

Instead of a classic multi-site setup, the team introduced exception-based content management. The idea is great: global content defaults to language-level versions. Editors only create locale-specific overrides when absolutely necessary, to ensure that regional and local aspects can be introduced per-locale when needed.

For example, if a story is written in English and needs a French translation, DatoCMS handles that cleanly, but if a specific region (say, Belgium) needs a different intro or component, they can override that field or block directly to update content accurately for BE-fr. No cloning entire records. No rework.

It’s a smart way to scale. Most content changes are made once and roll out across dozens of markets. But when a specific dish or story needs a local nuance, the system supports it cleanly, without duplicating everything or creating messy editorial workarounds.

The old way, a single menu update meant 55 versions of the same dish. Now they just override what they need and fall back everywhere else.

The result is a lean, flexible architecture that fits the team’s actual capacity. LPQ’s central editors can support 25+ countries without burnout or chaos. And they finally have a clear view of what content exists, where.

Every page on the site, the homepage, the Atelier, even seasonal stories, are built using modular blocks in DatoCMS.

These blocks are mapped directly to frontend components in Next.js. Editors get a structured WYSIWYG experience that still honors design constraints. No broken layouts. No inline spaghetti.

It’s the best of both worlds. Editors can remix content, reuse components, and build rich storytelling layouts without writing code or relying on developers.

And because the blocks reflect real brand ideas, like “the fourth ingredient is time”, editors aren’t just filling forms. They’re shaping experiences.

The site itself runs on a Next.js frontend deployed globally via Vercel. Pages are statically generated where possible, with ISR for dynamic content like store hours and seasonal dishes.

DatoCMS’s GraphQL API feeds exactly what’s needed per component, and nothing more. No bloat. No waste. Every interaction feels smooth and fast, even on image-heavy pages, and wow does this site have some great visuals sprinkled everywhere.

Speaking of images. this site is packed with hi-res images from all across the world. Le Pain Quotidien relies heavily on rich photography, but they didn’t want to hand-edit crops for every device.

No problem.

Just tell the client they don’t need to use Photoshop anymore. The look on their face is wild. And honestly, we forget to even mention it now because it just works.

The site leans on DatoCMS’s image API for format conversion, smart crops, and responsive delivery.

Moment of truth

Ok, so we've all loved talking about the technical nittygritties and details behind the scenes, but at the end, it doesn't really matter if the Le Pain Quotidien team struggles to keep the story going once they've been handed over the project. So the editorial experience REALLY needed to come through, and November Five did a stellar job of it.

The editorial team isn't huge. And they’re not developers. So everything had to be fast, safe, and most importantly, sane. And the feedback that the team shared with November Five reflects that.

Le Pain Quotidien uses real-time previews, scheduled publishing, and locale-specific fieldsets to work without friction. Permissions are finely tuned, so franchisees can edit what they need, without stepping on the global structure.

AI-assisted translation helped onboard all 55 locales during the initial migration. Editors can copy content between languages and refine from there, not start from zero.

It’s faster than anything we’ve used. And I love that I can just paste in a photo and not worry about it being the right size. It just... works.

So. What's next?

Now that the foundation is solid, the team is starting to layer on more.

One idea in the works is onboarding menus to the website. Every dish is now modeled as structured content, linked to seasonal campaigns, photography, and editorial storytelling. The croque monsieur in Paris might look and taste a little different than the one in New York, and the CMS needs to support that.

But of course, a dish isn't just a dish when storytelling is at the heart of all content. Each dish can link out to a story about its origin or philosophy. It’s not just a sandwich. It’s a story entry point. And the team is already running experiments to test engagement and narrative flow to ensure that editors can do justice to each dish's story when its' time to publish.

Another idea in the works is a DatoCMS plugin to track content completeness across locales. Multi-market brands often struggle to keep everything up to date. This plugin would help editors and managers see where things are missing or inconsistent.

There’s also ongoing work to optimize internal navigation, surface story snippets more contextually, and keep improving the experience across channels.

The best version of the site wasn't launch day. Its what's coming next!

Really exciting stuff going on!

What we loved so much about this project is that this wasn’t a typical site rebuild. It wasn’t about migrating content or adding features.

The tech stack didn’t get in the way of craft. It enabled it.

And now the story scales.