Welcome!
Bistro produces beautiful,
hand-crafted brand
and web experiences.
Our Mission
We partner with companies, organizations, and other agencies to build beautiful custom web experiences that are easy to edit and maintain long-term. We make the process easy and intuitive, especially when it comes to complex web and technology solutions.
We help translate flat design into responsive code, anticipating every nuance and user interaction.
We build and maintain our own custom WordPress admin that is easy to edit, customize and maintain.
We host and support our sites, partners and clients long-term. We are friendly, reliable, and fast.
We do everything in-house, and run our business in a way that provides for and sustains our employees.
Why the name Bistro?
The company was formed in 2008 after lots of coffee and lunch meetings in and around Santa Monica, CA. The name is a reference to European cafés and bistros where artists, writers, business people, politicians and others would ex- change ideas, collaborate, do business, or make deals. The classic bistros were social hubs, places for thought and discussion, and most of all provided a space to interact in an atmosphere that was relaxed and stress-free.
Our goal is to bring that same atmosphere into today’s world of business strategy, high-end design, and web engineering.
Capabilities
Full website planning, wireframes, and design collaborations
Full long-term hosting and maintenance capabilities
20+ years experience with design, consumer advertising and web
Technical SEO and ADA reviews and improvements
Expertise in crafting brand-driven website design
We value long-term relationships built on trust and shared mission
Expertise with custom WP themes & builds, including customized admins for easy editing
Easy and friendly ongoing support
Our Team
Matt Davis
managing partner / design / dev
(13 years @ Bistro)
Matt has 20+ years experience with design, consumer advertising and web, having started at ad agencies and then moving to web development in 2008. Matt understands high-end design, UX, and the demands of running projects on both side of the agency/contractor relationship.
Kristin Haswell
partner / dev / programming
(15 years @ Bistro)
Kristin learned to code long before it was cool. She currently manages client relationships and provides ongoing dev support and technical SEO and ADA guidance.
Emi Lee
dev / programming
(4 years @ Bistro)
Emi started as a designer in college, but kept taking CS classes. She went all in with dev in 2019 and has become an expert in WP theme development, focusing on search and filtering.
Blake Spencer
dev / programming
(2 years @ Bistro)
Blake has a CS background and is involved with theme development, programming and maintaining our WP codebase.
Featured Work
Climate Lead
What Clients are Saying:
“Matt and the team at Bistro are like an extension of our team. They are responsive, collaborative, and able to quickly execute on complex ideas like building a virtual tour of our platform on our marketing site. We are so thankful for their involvement in building our website and their ongoing work with us.”
– Libby DeCamps, VP of Marketing, 7 Shifts
“Bistro has been a trusted partner since the beginning of the rebuild of our site. We would not be able to achieve the level of customization in our news articles without their expertise, and we love their attention to design details. We have a unique web experience amongst online news sites as a result of our collaboration with them.”
– Matt Ferner, Editor-in-Chief, The Appeal
“Bistro was great from start to finish and I’m happy with not only the end product, but perhaps more importantly, the process. They listened (a lot) and then evaluated and gave us options with pros/cons. This extended well into development and even as late as talking through deployment approaches”
– Charlie Minato, Rueda Media
References:
References contact information available upon request
Alfred Adarkwah
Ghost Note Agency
We’ve worked with Ghost Note since 2021 as the dev partner on multiple large website revamps, including State Voices, Share our Strength and Lawyers Committee for Equal Rights.
Julia Seltzer
Hyperakt Agency
We’ve worked with Julia and Hyperakt since 2020 as the dev partner on multiple large website revamps, including Speed & Scale, Vote Early Day, and West Wing Writers.
Danielle Kidney
The Creative Pack
We’ve worked with TCP since 2014, partnering on web projects whenever a packaging client also needs a website. Our projects have ranged from small start-up Shopify stores, to large national brands needing a full website refresh.
Collin Berglund
Rational 360
We’ve worked with Rational360 since 2010, acting as their go-to development partner for small to mid-size cause-based campaign sites as well as special programming features.