AskAdy Creative · Lovable × Contra challenge case study

Retro Repair Café

A broken console. A better business idea.

This guide shows how Ady planned and built a repair-shop-meets-café web app on a 100 build-credit budget, and how you can adapt the same workflow. The app has working booking and repair tracking on a real backend with fictional demo jobs; the café, courier, community and marketplace features are concepts.

Project features

15-minute assessment bookings
Live repair status tracking (working backend, fictional demo jobs)
Food and seats while you wait (concept)
Drop-off, post or collection routes (concept — no real couriers)
Community gaming nights (concept)
Refurbished console marketplace (concept — no real payments)

Tool roles

ChatGPT / Codex — planning, page map and copy
Lovable — pages, booking flow, tracking, backend
Image generator — café, food and repair visuals
Higgsfield — cinematic B-roll
Runway — retro soundtrack
Filmora — presentation edit

The eight steps

01 · Problem & concept
Write the problem in one sentence: repair shops lose hours to walk-in interruptions, paper bookings and status calls. Pair the fix with a reason to visit: a retro café where gamers wait, eat and meet. List must-have features (booking, tracking) versus concept features (café orders, courier, community, marketplace).

02 · ChatGPT / Codex planning & copy
Before spending build credits, ask an assistant for a page map, booking fields, repair status stages and short homepage copy. Decide your credit budget per step (Ady worked within 100 credits).

03 · Lovable pages & booking flows
Build in focused prompts: homepage, services, 15-minute assessment booking form, repair tracker lookup. One feature per prompt; check the preview before moving on.

04 · Generated café, food and repair visuals
Create a small, consistent image set: café interior, counter food, repair bench, console close-ups. Reuse the same palette, lighting and lens description in every prompt.

05 · Backend & fictional test jobs
Enable the backend, store bookings and repair jobs, and seed only fictional demo jobs (example.com emails, invented names). Lock down who can read customer data.

06 · Higgsfield B-roll + Runway soundtrack
Generate short atmospheric café B-roll in Higgsfield and an original retro soundtrack in Runway for the presentation.

07 · Edit the presentation (Filmora)
Cut a short walkthrough: problem, live app demo (booking + tracking), concept features clearly labelled, closing line. Ady's finished cut runs 1m53.

08 · Publish & submit
Publish the app, test it signed out on a phone, then submit the link and video to the challenge community with an honest description.

Reusable prompts

Adapted examples written for reuse — not exact historical transcripts.

Planning

I'm building a web app for a retro games-console repair shop that also runs a café. Problems: walk-in interruptions, paper bookings, customers phoning for status. Propose a page map, booking form fields, five repair status stages and three-sentence homepage copy. Keep it buildable within about 100 AI build credits.

Homepage (Lovable)

Create a homepage for Retro Repair Café: warm dark theme with orange and teal accents, retro-gaming feel. Hero line 'A broken console. A better business idea.' Sections: book a 15-minute assessment, track your repair, café while you wait, community nights. Mobile-first.

Booking flow (Lovable)

Add a booking page for 15-minute console assessments: name, email, console model, fault description, preferred date/time, hand-over method (drop-off, post, collection — label post and collection as coming soon). Save bookings to the database and show a confirmation with a reference code.

Repair tracker (Lovable)

Add a repair tracker where a customer enters their reference code and email to see status: Booked, Assessing, Awaiting parts, Repairing, Ready. Only return the matching job; never list other customers.

Fictional demo data

Seed six fictional repair jobs using invented names and example.com emails across every status stage, so the tracker can be demoed without real customer data.

Café visual

Photorealistic interior of a cosy retro repair café at dusk, warm orange pendant lights, teal accents, wooden counter with coffee and toasties, repair bench with an opened games console, shelves of vintage consoles, people chatting, 35mm lens, soft film grain.

B-roll (Higgsfield)

Slow cinematic dolly through a busy retro repair café: steam from coffee, a technician soldering a console board, friends playing a vintage console on a CRT. Warm orange and teal light, natural movement, no text.

Soundtrack (Runway)

Original upbeat chiptune-meets-lo-fi track, 2 minutes, warm and nostalgic, light percussion, no vocals, loopable intro for a product presentation.

Visual consistency tips

Fix one palette (warm orange, teal, dark wood) and repeat it word-for-word in every visual prompt.
Keep the same lens and time of day across stills and B-roll.
Reuse the same café layout description so rooms don't change between shots.
Avoid real brand logos on consoles and signage.
Pick final images before building pages so the UI matches them.

Backend privacy & testing checklist

Seed fictional data only (invented names, example.com emails).
Customers can create bookings but cannot list other bookings.
Tracker returns one job only when reference and email match.
Test invalid emails, empty fields, duplicate bookings and a failed request.
Confirm a server error never shows a success message.
Remove test entries you don't want in the demo before publishing.
Run the built-in security check and fix critical warnings.

Competition submission checklist

App published and opens signed out on mobile.
Booking and tracking demoed end to end in the video.
Concept features clearly labelled as concept.
Video under the challenge's length limit with original or licensed music.
Description states budget, tools used and what is fictional.
Links checked: app, video, profile.
No claims of winning, prizes or voting outcomes.

Honest limitations

Café ordering, couriers and marketplace are not connected to real payments or delivery.
Demo jobs are fictional.
Later preview enhancements (3D exploded-console explorer, busy-café hero) are not part of the verified submission.
Prompts here are adapted examples, not exact historical transcripts.
AI tools and credit costs change; your results will vary.

An independent AskAdy Creative project. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Lovable or Contra. links.askady.com