Muertos Cantina × Trellis

The Restaurant

Meet Muertos Cantina

Muertos Cantina is a Mexican restaurant in Salt Lake City's Sugar House neighborhood. Known for their $2 breakfast tacos, 24-hour braised birria, and soft serve margaritas, they've built a loyal following — 9,224 Instagram followers (#1 Mexican restaurant on IG in SLC) and 1,041 Google reviews with a 4.50 average rating.

But behind the scenes, marketing was falling apart. Owner Tanner Slizeski was working 60+ hour weeks running the restaurant. Marketing happened at midnight after closing, or not at all. Social posts were sporadic. Google reviews piled up unanswered. SEO opportunities went unnoticed. He'd tried agencies ($3K+/month for mediocre results) and DIY (ChatGPT captions that sounded generic). Neither worked.

He needed a marketing team he could afford — one that actually understood his brand.

The Challenge

6 Hours a Week, Zero Strategy

6+ hrs

Weekly time spent on marketing

Dedicated marketing budget

Sporadic

Posting frequency

Unanswered

Google review responses

The Pain Points

"I don't know what to post" — Blank screen paralysis. Every post started from zero with no content strategy.
"My reviews are a mess" — 1,041 Google reviews, many unanswered. Negative reviews sat without responses, costing the restaurant customers.
"People can't find us online" — Despite strong foot traffic, Muertos was invisible for dozens of high-value search terms.
"ChatGPT sounds like a robot" — Tried AI for captions, but every output was generic. None of it captured the restaurant's cool, fun, birria-forward personality.
"I can't afford an agency" — Tried agencies at $3K–$5K/month. The ROI didn't justify the cost on restaurant margins.

The Solution

Trellis: AI Marketing That Actually Knows You

Muertos Cantina signed up for Trellis and was fully operational in under 3 minutes. Here's what happened:

Trellis Dashboard Overview for Muertos Cantina

Dashboard Overview — Health Score 61, weekly content plan active, brand voice learned

Magic Onboarding

Trellis connected to Muertos Cantina's Google Business Profile, analyzed their existing reviews and social content, and learned their brand voice automatically. No lengthy onboarding calls. No content questionnaires. The AI identified their tone as:

"Cool, fun vibe, delicious food, don't take ourselves too seriously, hip and on top of all the trends."

Within minutes, Trellis generated a complete weekly content plan with 7 posts, each including hook frameworks, full captions in Muertos' voice, shot descriptions, and scheduling suggestions. The dashboard was already populated with 1,041 synced reviews, SEO scores, and GBP health data.

"Wait — it already knows my brand? I didn't have to fill out a single form about our voice or personality. It just... got it."

— Tanner Slizeski, Owner, Muertos Cantina

Features in Action

What Trellis Does for Muertos

✍️ Content Studio — 35 Posts, Zero Blank Screens

Trellis generated 35 brand-voice posts covering Muertos' key themes: $2 breakfast tacos, birria, catering promotions (CATER30 code), Sugar House neighborhood love, and dinner pushes. Each post comes with a hook framework, full caption, and shot description — all Muertos needs to do is approve, tweak if they want, and post.

Trellis Content Studio showing 35 draft posts for Muertos Cantina

Social Feed — 35 AI-generated posts with food photography, platform tags, and brand-voice captions

⭐ Reviews — 1,041 Reviews, AI-Powered Responses

All 1,041 Google reviews are synced and organized. Trellis generates brand-voice responses for each review — positive and negative. The sentiment breakdown shows 86% positive (893), 67 neutral, and 81 negative. The AI is in learning mode, training on approved responses to improve over time.

Trellis Reviews showing 1,041 reviews with sentiment analysis

Reviews — 4.50 avg rating, 86% positive sentiment, 35.4% response rate and climbing

🔍 SEO — $3,350/Month in Untapped Revenue

Trellis's SEO audit scored Muertos at 80/100 and identified $3,350/month in untapped search traffic opportunity. The tool found specific content gaps — articles like "Why De Los Muertos is the Talk of Salt Lake City" (+$1,330), "Be the Go-To Spot for Mexican Food" (+$918), and "The Hidden Gem of Salt Lake City" (+$444). Each opportunity comes with an implementation plan.

Trellis SEO showing $3,350 monthly opportunity

SEO Intelligence — Score 80/100, $3,350/mo in opportunity gaps with dollar values per article

🔥 Content Intelligence — 318 Trending Videos

The Intelligence feed pulled 318 trending videos across TikTok (250), YouTube (6), and Instagram (62) in the Mexican restaurant niche. Top-performing content hits 24M views. An "Inspire" button on any video takes the concept straight into the content composer — so Muertos can adapt proven viral formats to their own brand.

Trellis Content Intelligence showing 318 trending videos

Content Intelligence — 318 trending videos, 24M top views, with "Inspire" to adapt trends

📍 Google Business Profile — Fully Managed

GBP Health Score: 51/100 with a clear path to improvement. Profile completeness at 86%, posting cadence tracked weekly, and Autopilot Mode ready to automate review responses and post scheduling. Three open actions identified for immediate optimization.

Trellis GBP showing health score and autopilot

GBP Console — Health score 51, Autopilot Mode, quick actions for profile optimization

The Results

From Scattered to Strategic

Brand-voice posts generated in seconds

1,041

Reviews synced with AI responses

$3,350

Monthly SEO opportunity identified

318

The Math

Before Trellis: 6+ hours/week on marketing × $30/hr owner time = $720+/month in time cost. Plus inconsistent output, no SEO, unanswered reviews.

With Trellis: 15 minutes/week reviewing AI-generated content + $129/month. Full content calendar, review management, SEO intelligence, GBP optimization, and trend monitoring included.

Net savings: $591+/month in time recaptured, plus $3,350/month in identified SEO opportunity. That's a potential 30:1 ROI on the Trellis subscription.

How It Happened

From Zero to Fully Operational

Minute 1 — Sign Up & Connect

Created account, connected Google Business Profile via OAuth. No passwords shared, no API keys needed.

Minute 2 — Brand Voice Analysis

Trellis analyzed existing reviews, social posts, and website copy. Identified brand voice, category (restaurant), and distribution channels (TikTok + Meta).

Minute 3 — Dashboard Live

1,041 reviews synced. SEO audit running. First content plan generating. Health Score calculated at 61/100 with clear improvement path. Dashboard fully operational.

✓

First Week — Content Plan Ready

7 posts generated for the week covering breakfast tacos, birria, catering, and neighborhood content. Each with hook frameworks, captions, shot descriptions, and scheduling. 35 total posts in the library.

✓

Intelligence Feed — 318 Trending Videos

Content Intelligence synced 318 trending videos from TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram in the Mexican restaurant niche. Top video at 24M views. "Inspire" workflow connects trends directly to content creation.

How Muertos Cantina Got a Full Marketing Team for $129/mo