Our Story

Keith Kristofer Salon was opened by Kris & Keith Williams in January of 2005. We’re a three owner business these days after being joined by our daughter Madison.

Kris left a background in nursing and management of corporate childcare centers to go to beauty school while Keith, who had a background in architecture, construction, art and as a creative director at web companies read up on the salon business. Together we designed and built out a nine chair salon in a brand new shopping center on Bee Caves Rd across from what’s now Trader Joes. We picked that spot because it was “upscale” and still under construction with a 24 hour Albertson’s grocery store slated to open right before we did.

We opened with one stylist (Kris), and one front desk person. As it turned out, that Albertson’s never opened and the grocery chain went belly up a few years later. We sat alone in that vacant center for three years with a liquor store as our only neighbor. We got through those early years with sheer will and eventually expanded, taking the liquor store’s space when they gave up, which added another twelve chairs for a total of twenty-one.

Along the way, we learned a lot about small business and a lot about people. We tried a number of operating systems espoused by the hottest salon gurus and made our share of mistakes. About ten years into business we got into the education business by hiring almost exclusively out of cosmetology school and putting everyone through a long training program. It raised the talent level of our salon, but was expensive. We’re still huge into education because having extremely talented staff makes everything easier. The technical abilities of our staff is worlds ahead of where it used to be.

We’re a family owned business and everybody in the family’s been involved at some point, from the teenage sons who cleaned the place until they were fired for not showing up, to our daughter Madison who introduced a new modern vision and dragged us kicking and screaming into the new reality of the salon industry where stylists are more independent and marketing savvy.

Madison went to cosmetology school right out of high school and became an aesthetician, building a thriving brow business inside the salon, (we used to do skincare and nails years ago). A few years later, she went back to school and became a hair stylist focused on cutting. She and Kris both have more education, classes and certifications under their belts than you can imagine. Madison has been instrumental in recent years driving the salon forward, converting the business to hourly pricing without gratuity and to nearly unlimited freedom for our stylists.

During COVID, when a lot of salons went out of business, it was touch and go for us too, but we stayed at work daily booking customers for “after COVID”, then moving two months worth of appointments three times as opening dates moved back with each Governor’s order.

A year after re-opening, we moved into our current space here on West 5th Street. It’s spacious with high ceilings, a ton of natural light, plants galore and easy free parking. We like it and we’re hoping you will too.