A restaurant that has long been a central gathering place for the creative community in Lawrence is closing its doors this weekend.
El Taller was the venue for many things — quinceañeras, book launches, film festivals, open mics, weddings, baby showers, vendor evenings and even experimental night clubs.
“This place for me was an incubator for the arts,” said Gerald Liriano, who has been coming to El Taller since he was 16.
He’s now a 26-year-old rapper with a hip-hop group called Glasshouse and gained his footing through attending open mic nights at El Taller. He is set to play at Governor’s Ball in New York this year.
Owner Mary Guerrero said keeping up with payroll has been an ongoing struggle for her family over the years. Retirement is looming and her and her husband are facing some health issues.
“I really don’t want it to close, but it has to,” she told GBH News tearfully.
Felipe Collazo, a community organizer, said “The Guerreros have created a space that kind of laid the bedrock for an artistic renaissance in the community.”
El Taller means “the workshop” and it speaks to how the restaurant was envisioned as a place where people could get together and work out ideas.
The tables and seats at El Taller represent the metal shop feeling — with wrenches, nuts and bolts embedded in resin.
“It’s a convening point for individuals that want to improve the city, that care about social justice, that care art and culture,” said State Senator Pavel M. Payano. He is grateful for the Guerreros and the sister restaurant Cafe Azteca that they merged with in 2021.
“I have this deep sense of love for individuals that give it their all for my community,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that at any point could have left yet they double down and they decided to not just stay — but invest.”
The Guerrero family greenlit Collazo’s idea to host a 24-hour movie marathon last year, where he played action movies including “Die Hard” “Battle Royal” and “Desperado.”
That event was one of many hosted in the versatile space. There was a lot to work with: The main space was filled with tables, counters and benches as well as stocked bookshelves highlighting local authors. Upstairs was where all of the events took place — a speaker, a bright yellow couch, a projector and more tables.
Liriano refers to El Taller as his version of social media — where he got to know everybody over the past decade.
“My favorite memory was the freedom this place allocated for us because who else would trust a bunch of teenagers with a second floor? And a speaker?” he adds, “It closing — it feels like a piece of me is also leaving with it.”
While growing up in Lawrence, many of the community members knew of the Boston Magazine article that stamped a title on their close-knit community: “City of the Damned.”
Wangeci Gitau also grew up alongside El Taller. In her early years, she attended Lawrence Public Schools and realized that the city could be considered a literary hub.
Gitau hosted an overnight writing session the same evening that Collazo ran his 24-hour movie marathon. “People like Mary knew that they needed folks to change the reputation in the city, which I think I tried really hard to do when I was young, and I still try to do today,” Gitau said.
Gitau and friends decided to create a literary magazine after a conversation at the cafe. It went live in 2020 as a way to engage local creatives. The magazine, Exposed Brick Literary Magazine, was available for sale on El Taller’s bookshelves and its first issue featured 20 writers and artists. They’ve since released six issues.
Before the cafe launched, Guerrero spent time attending writing clubs and workshops and remembers a common question — where did the writers go to write? Most would answer: a cafe.
“If a city doesn’t have a cafe, does that mean there aren’t any writers around? Does that mean we don’t have filmmakers? Does that mean we don’t have artists?” she said.
Guerrero says the restaurant has been sold to two Puerto Rican brothers who currently own El Criollo in Dracut, Massachusetts, and want to bring authentic Puerto Rican food to Lawrence. She says she is optimistic that they will bring a good energy to the area.
She will continue teaching sixth grade history in Lawrence Public Schools and continue her writing program at the Lawrence Historical Center. Guerrero jokes that without her restaurant work, she’ll be “planning on grading papers a lot sooner.”
Guerrero credits her enthusiasm to her experience as a teacher, and says the approach was similar. “People would come up to me and say, ‘I want a book club.’ And I would be like, ‘That’s amazing. Are you going to do that?’”
Guerrero is humble about the impact the cafe has had.
“I didn’t make it happen. I’m allowing a space where people can see it,” she said.
