As with Foodie Pro, this child theme offers a huge range of customisation options that are imbedded in the theme and can be adjusted in your WordPress dashboard. Different sidebar/content layouts, as well as changes that would typically be made by altering the CSS code, making this a great theme for beginners.

In the dedicated Customiser you can:

• change the fonts, headers and menu items (style, sizes, colours)
• change the buttons and links (colours)
• upload your own background
• upload your own logo header
• set up your content archives

These customisations will enable you to easily create a beautiful, personalised website that really feels like your own, although I do encourage you to experiment with adjusting the CSS code to get the site looking exactly how you want it. It’s a very rewarding skill and makes you feel like a website magician. For this redesign I made many, many CSS tweaks that were out of the scope of the Customiser and I wouldn’t have been quite happy without them. My post Styling Brunch Pro details the changes I made.

BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME: Tutorials

Shay and her team also have made many tutorials to help you set up your site:

How to style Easy Recipe to match your Brunch Pro site
Using static images in their hero area with Brunch Pro
Using Type Kit with Brunch Pro
Using Google fonts with Brunch Pro
How to change the header size in Brunch Pro
How to use the customizer
Install Brunch Pro with demo content and import widgets
How to configure the Brunch Pro homepage
How to configure the Brunch Pro recipe index
How to add a retina-ready logo header to Brunch Pro
How to configure the Brunch Pro content archives
How to configure the Brunch Pro footer widgets
How to add a Simmer recipe
How to link to a category in your menu
Add a widget area before your entries (works with Foodie Pro)

These tutorials are clear and very useful, and if you have any problems setting up your site, her team will offer e-mail support with a fast turn around and will help you make your site look as the one in the demo does. BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME

But this assistance only extends as far as mirroring the demo site – if you have any other questions about how to tweak your site, you will be directed to a hired developer. I fully understand how difficult it would be for Shay and her team to offer customisation support to the large numbers of people using this theme, but it can leave you a little stuck. Hiring a developer just isn’t an option for many people and some of us would dearly like to be able to make the changes ourselves, to learn these useful and rewarding computer skills, albeit with a nudge in the right direction. BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME

As I said in my last review, perhaps a support forum, instead of e-mail support would be an option for this theme? I received many, many questions about minor edits of Foodie Pro that could have been better answered in a collective, searchable forum, although I was very happy to host so many people taking their first steps in code editing! Do continue with your queries for Brunch Pro! BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME

Brunch Pro theme: Mobile responsiveness

Brunch Pro is fully responsive – this means it adapts to the screen size the reader is using and presents them with an optimised version of the website, in fact Brunch Pro has four different mobile sizes built into the theme. This responsiveness reduces loading time for small devices and enables the most important content to be seen more clearly on small screens. BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME

The last incarnation of my site did away with mobile responsiveness all together, although it was included in the Foodie Pro theme. In fact I wrote a whole tutorial on how to disable the mobile theme in Foodie Pro. However for this site redesign I have decided to embrace it. Google has been very clear about its plans for demoting sites that are not mobile responsive and I can see from my own Google Analytics that my bounce rate is highest for mobile. Also, for now I am not running adverts, so the lack of sidebar on mobile devices didn’t seem so important. BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME

However I still wanted to prioritise the desktop look – it so much prettier! Specifically, I wanted my site to look the same as the desktop version for most screens and only become mobile responsive around the size of a small tablet. That felt like a good compromise to me. To do this in Brunch Pro I had to adjust the CSS, but it turned out to be much easier than I thought. I am now extremely happy with how my site looks on all devices and I’m trying to embrace the design challenge of mobile responsiveness rather than to just hate it ? Full details will be included in my post, Styling Brunch Pro. BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME

I’d love to know what you think of the change in the comments.

Brunch Pro theme: Recommended plugins

In addition to Simmer, Brunch Pro theme comes complete with styling for several important plugins, to make them blend as seamlessly as possible with the design of your site. Genesis Enews Extended plugin allows you to add various newsletter signup boxes to your site, which fit nicely with your chosen theme. Simple Social Icons similarly helps keep your fans up-to-date with your content, offering colour-customisable icon links to your social networks, via a widget. Gravity Forms are also recommended, but I already use the free Contact Form 7 for my simple contact form and that seemed enough for my needs. BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME

Brunch Pro theme: WooCommerce shop

If you are hoping to build a beautiful, elegant shop with this theme, you can! Although the theme itself doesn’t offer WooCommerce compatibility, using the Genesis Connect for Woo Commerce plugin makes everything play nicely. BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME

Brunch Pro theme: Conclusion

So there we have it. I’m extremely pleased I made the leap to change my theme, relaunch the site and move forward with a fresh, new design. I was perfectly happy with my old design, and with Foodie Pro, but Brunch Pro feels that bit more modern, that bit cleaner, that bit brighter, that bit more shiny. It is highly, highly functional and I hope, with the structure I created, easy to navigate. And once again I can say my site looks and works better now than at any point previously, and I have Brunch Pro to thank for it. BRUNCH PRO WORDPRESS THEME

Build your own beautiful brand with this Genesis child theme, made for showcasing your gorgeous, colourful photography and your mouth-watering recipes.

Highly recommended!

Brunch Pro is a premium theme available from Studiopress.
It runs on the Genesis Framework.
You can buy Brunch Pro and Genesis together.
Or if you already have Genesis, get Brunch Pro separately.