Our Story
Beginning in 2016, Mike Healy, Jim Lasko and Elyse Agnello met around Jim’s kitchen table on Tuesday nights for nearly two years. They hosted local thinkers, tinkerers, bakers, bankers, entrepreneurs and makers until they came to see the contours of a unique place where craft and concern for the social good coalesced. Guild Row was born at the intersection of their experience: a building, designed by DAAM, an architecture and design firm founded by Agnello; filled with programming curated by Lasko who made his name as the director of Chicago’s renowned Redmoon Theater, a company committed to wild, participatory spectacles; and woven thoughtfully into a dynamic neighborhood under the guidance of Healy, an award winning urban planner regarded for his ability to distill complex problems to actionable steps.
In August 2020, amid a global pandemic, Guild Row opened its doors, its founders believing that togetherness is an essential good, made more urgent by social distancing constraints. Today, Guild Row continues to build its community, project by project and Member by Member. Together.
The Guild Row Team
EYLSE AGNELLO (she/her) | Founder
JIM LASKO (he/him) | Founder
CANDIS OAKLEY (she/her) | Community & Events Manager
TIRZAH OLIVER (she/her) | Director of Sales
NASH KENNEDY (he/him) | Shop Manager
HUNTER HOFFMAN (she/her) | Marketing Manager
TRIA SMITH (she/her) | Guild Row Ambassador
COME WORK, MEET, LOUNGE, LEARN, & REVEL WITH US
Built around an open air courtyard, the Guild Row campus features a teaching kitchen and a woodshop, a live fire cooking station, a members lounge with a full café and bar, co-working space, a small library, and an ultra-flexible dynamic event space perfect for gatherings of all kinds.
Explore our space:
The Rockwell Garden
It’s more than a great beer garden. Our centrally located outdoor room is perfect for gatherings large and small. The heart of our campus is fully equipped with heaters, picnic tables, a fire pit, wood fire grills, a projection screen, and raised herb garden beds. It’s the perfect spot to spend time in the sunshine or under the stars with friends, family and fellow members.
Guild Hall
Guild Hall is your Member’s Lounge. Guild Hall features a bar and a cafe space. The glorious nature light and double-high ceilings make Guild Hall an ideal third space in the dark of Winter.
The Belmont Room
The Belmont Room is designed as a flexible high-bay space suitable for hosting a wide array of crafting programs and events. It is a space designed to house Workshops, Open Studios, and Curated Experiences. The room is also suitable for Viewings, Talks, Musical Performance and other audience based programs.
The Avondale Kitchen
The Avondale Room is designed as a dynamic space for culinary-based events and gatherings. Its direct connection to our fully-equipped commercial kitchen will allow for meals to be prepared and shared by novices, hobbyists and chefs alike.
The Workshop
The Work Shop is a fully functioning woodshop, with a planer, joiner, tablesaw, bandsaw, router and more. While most of our programming will take place elsewhere in the club, The Work Shop houses our tools and is the home to our Tool Lending Library, a resource available to our members and to our Avondale neighborhood. The Work Shop is intended as a resource for instructors to prepare for classes, events, and group projects.
spend a day on campus
Let us host you and show you what we’re building together.