The Build
How The Hungry
Hussey Was Built
A full-stack e-commerce destination for premium BBQ rubs, sauces, and pitmaster gear — built as a Wix Headless storefront with a custom React frontend, a serverless backend, and a 5,700-member loyalty program. This is the complete story of how it was made, every feature that shipped, and the architecture underneath.
The Story
The Hungry Hussey started as a Wix site — a solid storefront with a loyal following of backyard pitmasters. But as the brand grew, so did the ambition: a cinematic shopping experience, a recipe library worth bookmarking, a video hub, a blog, and a loyalty program that could track 5,700+ members with point balances, redemptions, and expiration. The original Wix template couldn't stretch that far.
The decision was to go headless: keep Wix as the authoritative backend for products, payments, loyalty, contacts, and blog content, but build an entirely custom React frontend on Base44's serverless platform. The result is a dark, cinematic storefront with a "Primitive Precision" aesthetic — Oswald headings, Inter body, an "Embers & Ash" color palette, and a signature "Sear" hover glow that makes every product card feel like it just hit the griddle.
Every product, every recipe, every blog post, and every loyalty transaction flows through a secure backend layer. The frontend never touches Wix credentials directly — it calls serverless functions that broker requests, validate inputs, and return only what the customer needs to see. The loyalty program alone required paginating through 5,659 legacy accounts, reconciling point totals, and building an import pipeline with CSV mapping and duplicate detection.
What follows is the complete feature inventory — everything that shipped, including the things you never see.
Architecture
Wix Headless Backend
- ›Wix Stores catalog (V1) — products, pricing, inventory
- ›Wix Payments (Base44 Payments) — checkout, webhooks, refunds
- ›Wix Loyalty — accounts, balances, transactions, rewards
- ›Wix Contacts — contact directory sync
- ›Wix Blog — headless blog content via REST API
- ›Wix CMS — SEO/data collections
Custom React Frontend
- ›React 18 + Vite + Tailwind CSS
- ›shadcn/ui component library
- ›React Router for client-side routing
- ›TanStack React Query for data fetching
- ›Framer Motion for animations
- ›Dark 'Embers & Ash' design system
Base44 Serverless Layer
- ›14 backend functions (TypeScript)
- ›17+ database entities with row-level security
- ›3 scheduled workflows
- ›Payment webhook with JWT verification
- ›Realtime entity subscriptions
- ›Service-role SDK for privileged operations
Security & Access
- ›Email/password + Google OAuth authentication
- ›OTP email verification on signup
- ›Row-level security on every entity
- ›Admin-only routes with ProtectedRoute gating
- ›Server-side price resolution (never trust client)
- ›JWT-verified payment webhooks
Storefront Features
Filterable Product Catalog
Shop page with category, price range, search, sort, and stock filters. Products span 7 categories: seasonings, magnets, t-shirts, hats, downloads, bundles, and griddle favorites.
Flavor Anatomy Product Detail
Split-screen product pages with image gallery, blur-region editor for label protection, flavor tags, pairs-with product recommendations, Fera reviews, and embedded YouTube videos.
Slide-Out Shopping Cart
Persistent cart drawer with quantity controls, subtotal calculation, and checkout handoff. Cart state survives page navigation.
Secure Checkout with Loyalty Redemption
Server-side price resolution, Wix payment session creation, loyalty point redemption for discount, and webhook-driven order fulfillment.
303-Recipe Library
Full recipe catalog with category and difficulty filters, featured recipe carousel, and detail pages with ingredient groups, step-by-step instructions, sub-recipes, pro tips, storage notes, and product cross-links.
Video Hub
YouTube-powered video library with categories, durations, and descriptions. Video testimonials page for customer reviews.
Headless Blog
Blog content pulled from Wix Blog via REST API. Post grid with pagination, individual post pages, category pages, tag pages, and related recipes.
Podcast Page
Dedicated podcast episode page with embedded players.
Items I Use / Affiliate
Gear and griddle accessory recommendations with affiliate links.
Wishlist & Saved Recipes
Logged-in customers can wishlist products, save recipes, and track viewed videos — all visible in the account dashboard.
Customer Messaging
Contact form creates customer message records. Admins can reply, and customers see responses in their account.
Newsletter Signup
Email capture with subscriber entity and admin newsletter management.
Loyalty Program — Hussey Points
Wix as Source of Truth
The loyalty program uses Wix's native Loyalty API as the authoritative source for all balances, transactions, and program configuration. Base44 serves as a secure linking layer — storing references to Wix loyalty account IDs, contact IDs, and member IDs — so customers can view their live balance, earn points on purchase, and redeem points at checkout.
5,659 Legacy Accounts Imported
CSV import pipeline with column mapping, duplicate detection, and pre-import validation. 5,683 imported unclaimed, 21 flagged for review.
Auto-Link on Signup
When a customer registers with an email that matches an imported loyalty account, it auto-links — no manual claim needed.
Point Earning Rules
Purchase (1 pt/$1), signup bonus (50 pts), birthday bonus (50 pts), and admin adjustments — all configurable.
Flexible Reward Redemption
10 points = $1 discount at checkout. Points deducted server-side and reversed on refund/cancellation via webhook.
Expiration & Notices
6-month expiration with 14-day advance email notices. Inactive reminders sent after 30 days of no activity.
5 Automated Email Triggers
Welcome, reward eligible, inactive reminder, birthday, and expiration notice — each toggleable by admin.
Admin Management Tools
Product Management
Full CRUD with image gallery, blur-region editor, SEO fields, flavor tags, pairs-with, video embedding, and visibility toggles.
Inventory Management
Stock tracking, low-stock thresholds, in-stock toggles, and SKU management.
Home Features
Curate up to 4 featured products on the homepage with drag-ordering.
Favorite Lists
Create and manage curated product lists (e.g., 'Griddle Favorites') with display ordering.
Recipe Manager
Full recipe CRUD with ingredient groups, sub-recipes, steps, tips, product links, and visibility controls.
Video Manager
YouTube video management with categories, display order, and visibility.
Newsletter Manager
View and export subscriber list.
SEO Manager
Per-page SEO: title tags, meta descriptions, focus keywords, indexability, and display order.
Contact Directory
Wix-synced contacts with labels, subscription status, and invite-as-member functionality.
Analytics Dashboard
Page view tracking, visitor sessions, and traffic insights.
Loyalty Dashboard
Live Wix data, point adjustments, bulk operations, CSV import, account linking, and export.
Media Library
Image and video management with folders, background removal (remove.bg), and reuse across products.
Behind the Scenes — Features You Don't See
14 Serverless Backend Functions
create-checkout, payments-webhook, loyalty-ops, wix-loyalty, wixProducts, wix-seo, sync-wix-contacts, track-page-view, myPurchases, newsletterSignup, feraReviews, remove-background, youtubeFeed, youtubePlaylist.
17+ Database Entities with RLS
Product, Recipe, BlogPost, Video, VideoReview, LoyaltyAccount, LoyaltyTransaction, LoyaltyProgram, LoyaltyImportRecord, Base44Purchase, Contact, CustomerMessage, PageView, PageSEO, MediaItem, MediaFolder, FavoriteList, plus user activity entities (ProductWishlist, SavedRecipe, ViewedVideo, Subscriber, RecipeRating).
3 Scheduled Workflows
Daily Loyalty Processing (expiration + email notices), Loyalty Signup Bonus (auto-award on registration), Daily Contact Sync (Wix contacts → Base44 directory).
Payment Webhook with Loyalty Reversal
JWT-verified webhook handles ORDER_APPROVED, SUBSCRIPTION_CANCELED, and SUBSCRIPTION_ENDED. Refunds automatically reverse loyalty points.
Row-Level Security on Every Entity
Customers see only their own wishlist, saved recipes, messages, and loyalty data. Admins see everything. Public content is openly readable.
AI Background Removal
Integrated remove.bg API for product image cleanup, with base64 upload to handle AVIF format compatibility.
YouTube Feed & Playlist Integration
Backend functions pull live YouTube channel feeds and playlists for the video hub.
Fera Reviews Integration
Product reviews pulled from Fera API with partner key and store domain authentication.
Wix Contact Auto-Sync
Daily workflow syncs contacts from Wix to the Base44 Contact entity, preserving labels and subscription status.
Protected Route Guarding
Account, loyalty, admin, and media pages are gated behind ProtectedRoute — unauthenticated users redirect to register/login.
Realtime Subscriptions
Entity-level realtime updates for cart, loyalty, and admin data — changes reflect instantly without polling.
Paginated Loyalty Import
Custom pagination with ID-based deduplication to overcome 5,000-record API limits when importing 5,659 legacy accounts.
SEO & GEO Features
Per-Page SEO Management
Admin SEO manager controls title tags, meta descriptions, focus keywords, and indexability for every page.
Dynamic Meta Tags
SeoController component injects page-specific meta tags, Open Graph tags, and canonical URLs at runtime.
XML Sitemap
Machine-readable /sitemap.xml with all public pages, updated priorities, and change frequencies for Google crawlers.
robots.txt
Allows public pages, disallows admin/account/checkout routes, and references the sitemap location.
Product Schema
Each product page carries structured data for product name, price, availability, and images.
Recipe Schema
Recipe pages include structured data for ingredients, cook time, and serving size.
Blog SEO
Headless blog posts carry their own meta data from Wix, with category and tag pages for topical authority.
Page View Analytics
track-page-view backend function records visitor IDs, sessions, page paths, and referrers for traffic analysis.
Google Ads Ready
Built-in Google Ads integration for creating and managing campaigns that promote the published app.
Custom Domain
App is published and can connect a custom domain for brand-consistent URLs.
Design System
Aesthetic
Primitive Precision
Dark, cinematic, griddle-inspired
Palette
Embers & Ash
Typography
Oswald + Inter
Display headings, readable body
Signature Effect
Sear Glow
Internal ember glow + border shift on hover
Texture
Grain Overlay
Subtle radial-dot grain for depth
Technology Stack
React 18
Vite
Tailwind CSS
shadcn/ui
React Router
TanStack Query
Framer Motion
Lucide Icons
Recharts
React Leaflet
React Quill
React Hook Form
Base44 SDK
Wix REST APIs
TypeScript
Node.js
That's Some Good Groceries.
Explore the storefront, browse 303 recipes, or shop the full lineup of Hussey's seasonings and pitmaster gear.