Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Guild.
Hi Jake, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Guildhall Games was spawned as a result of disability. Co-owner Nicole Frascino was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) shortly before she graduated from UNC with a Ph.D in Epidemiology. She worked for the state producing the COVID numbers we all followed and eventually entered industry until we both contracted COVID. This activated previously dormant conditions in Nicole and she was stricken with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), rendering her unable to work.
Not too long after that I was diagnosed with an intractable migraine (permanent migraine), which caused me to have to also leave my job and go on disability.
In our experiences surrounding our disabilities, we met tons of people in similar situations, that had been all but left behind by society. How can a community kept artificially poor by the state possibly be able to afford advocates for the group as a whole?
So we decided to do what we could do with what we knew best, board games. One of the few activates that people with disabilities, especially physical disabilities, can participate in fully, without any special treatment. That’s all that much of the disabled community wants, to be treated like a normal human being instead of being treated like a lesser being in constant need of help.
From this spawned Guildhall Games, a disability, neurodivergent and queer focused board game & toy store (two additional communities that most businesses don’t spend any time making them feel comfortable and safe). We have two prongs to our store, one is the store itself. Acting as a retail store, but also a third space where our local community can meet and gain resources that might be otherwise unavailable to them, about how to navigate their disabilities in the local area. The second prong being a national mission within the game store industry, to bring more attention to disabilities and their manifestations, as well as education into how game stores can make their spaces more accessible at a price that would end up making more money than is spent upgrading their spaces. To this effect, we work with “The Table Game Association” (GAMA), the entity representing the board game industry in the US.
When we move from our 280sqft store at Boxyard RTP to our brand new 3944sqft space in Downtown Durham (204 Rigsbee Ave) on August 1, we will be able to fully embrace the “third space” aspect to our business and be able to host numerous events catering to our underserved communities as well as the local community as a whole!
I can add a lot more if needed, I can talk about all of this for hours 🙂
-Jake
Here is the April 2025 feature we had in Amberly Magazine you can use as well!
By Teresa Zarcone-Perez
Board games and jigsaw puzzles are an entertaining way for people of all ages to exercise the brain— and to have fun! Life is not all fun and games. But the Guild family connects the benefits of playing games and puzzles to advocate for a happy, healthy and non-judgmental way of life.
The Guild family (last name pronounced to rhyme with child) is made up of husband and wife, Bruce and Linda and their two sons, David, 38, and Jake, 34, as well as Jake’s wife, Dr. Nicole Frascino, PhD, 34. The family has deep roots in Durham with Linda and Bruce having lived in the same house their entire marriage of 42 years.
Linda, who uses her maiden name of Convissor, is retired having held the position of Director of Community Relations at the University of North Carolina. While at UNC she maintained local governments, community and neighborhood groups in the loop and involved with all things related to UNC. Bruce, 78, is also retired. He taught high school math at Durham School of the Arts. They are both alums of New College in Florida. An inspirational fact the family shares is that in 2019, when Bruce was 72 years old, he went back to college to finish a bachelor of arts degree he started in 1964 (he’d already gotten a bachelor’s of science from North Carolina State and a Master’s of Arts in Teaching MAT from Carolina University). So, Bruce then 74 years old had fulfilled a lifelong goal that shows perseverance, a quality that he instills in his sons.
The family’s beloved four-legged members include: Tillie Tillerson III, a 9-year-old Aussie mix; Gizmotron, a 7-year-old mystery mix; Eloise, an 8-year-old dog who is the “sweetheart” of the family; and two kittens Pepper, a Calico and Wesley a black kitten.
The Guilds live outside of the Amberly Master community but the family has ties with Amberly residents who enjoy playing board games, piecing together jigsaw puzzles and participating in the increasingly popular activity of speed puzzling.
Puzzles and board games provide health benefits. They help you to relax, give you a break from screens, sharpen your memory, improve your motor skills, keep your brain healthy and boost your problem-solving skills.
“Board games are a fantastic way for those in the disabled community to participate fully in a fun activity with the able-bodied community,” says Jake who suffers from the debilitating pain caused by a chronic migraine disorder.
Neurodiversity refers to the different ways a person’s brain processes information, the cognitive differences between how people think, learn and behave. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and/or impulsivity that interfere with daily functioning and development.
Driven by firsthand experiences living with disabilities, the Guild family is part of the niche specialty games industry. The family business focus prioritizes providing a safe space for people of all different backgrounds to gather.
“Most people are hush-hush about conditions like autism and we are trying to overturn that stigma and have open discussions about it so that people can be more understanding of the issues,” adds Jake, who like his brother and dad, are all autistic.
The main attribute of Autism is that people who are autistic communicate very differently than those, like Jake’s mom for example, who are neurotypical individuals; Jake’s mom is neurotypical.
That means that neurodivergent individuals have different strengths and challenges from neurotypical individuals whose brains don’t have those differences. The possible differences include medical disorders, learning disabilities and other conditions. The possible strengths include better memory, the ability to solve complex mathematical calculations in their head, and many more.
Games helped form a strong bond between father and sons for Bruce, David and Jake and a long-lasting passion for games shares Jake who recalls first playing the “Axis & Allies” board game as a seven years-old playing games with his dad and brother.
“For years, Jake dreamed of opening a game store. He was persistent and found a home for the Guildhall Games in the Boxyard, the perfect spot. It’s wonderful watching Jake become a talented businessman and the family all pitch in to run the shop. We are very proud of him,” Bruce comments.
Disabilities and disorders do not dissuade the Guilds. Jake beat the odds and used the knowledge of his conditions as a driving force to set goals and make a lifelong dream become a reality. In August 2023, Guildhall Games was established in Durham to create the type of store Jake wished existed when he was growing up. The specialty game and toy store is housed in an outfitted 8 x 40-foot shipping container.
“The Boxyard is a great group of entrepreneurs, and we were so impressed at how they welcomed Jake and Nicole,” Linda says, noting that though Jake is the boss, the whole family – four-legged members included – are all part of the Guildhall Games team.
The store caters towards the neurodivergent community with product selection and merchandising including a wide variety of fidgets for ADHD, games specifically for ADHD sufferers and stuffed animals.
Jake explains how stuffed animals can be important and not just a toy for the autistic community, young or old. “Those with autism usually have sensory issues and can easily get overwhelmed, but stuffed animals provide a feeling of security,” he says, admitting without shame that he still relies on the security of his own stuffed animal collection.
“It’s hard to make friends if you are different and it’s even harder to make friends as you get older in general and when you are different. So playing a board game or doing a puzzle lets you have a ‘friend date’ with the other players, with no pressure to follow-up with the other players,,” Jake comments attributing firsthand experience.
Fortunately for Jake, a common interest in games opened the door of opportunity for him to meet Nicole, as they both stayed in the game becoming friends and eventually getting married.
“Nicole and I met while she was in her Epidemiology PhD program at UNC-CH and I was working for UNC Healthcare,” Jake says. In 2022, the couple celebrated their wedding in the Town of Madison, NC and they reside in Jake’s native city of Durham.
Jake attended high school at the Durham School of the Arts (DSA), then The North Carolina School of Science and Math (NCSSM) for his junior and senior years. Then he continued his education at Grinnell College in Iowa where he got his bachelor’s in computer science.
Nicole was born and raised in Burlington, Vermont. She attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and where she earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in public health. She came to Triangle area to attend the University of North Carolina –Chapel Hill School of Public Health to earn her PhD, Doctorate in Epidemiology
The Guild family’s interest in games is not limited to table games as they are big into athletic sports, too.
The Guilds are fans of the Gonzaga University basketball team, the Carolina Hurricanes ice hockey and the Charlotte FC soccer club. Jake and Nicole even traveled to the Bahamas to watch the “Battle4Atlantis” basketball tournament and the Gonzaga Bulldogs and UNC Tar Heels were playing in it.
The Guild family also takes time to travel together. A favorite destination is Holden Beach on North Carolina’s coastline where Linda and Bruce have gone for 38 consecutive years. So, 38-year-old David and 34-year-old Jake have also enjoyed the family beach trips each year.
Visiting the same destination year-after-year provides the Guilds with an important level of familiarity and routine. While most people go on vacation to escape from the usual routine, for the Guilds going to the same destination helps lessen the challenges with social interactions and communication that comes with having an Autism Spectrum Disorder. This is the Guild’s choice that has worked for nearly 40 years.
We all make choices. Some choose differently than others. We all want to have fun. We are all different.
“It’s good to have a community where you feel like you belong. I’m happy to be making an impact in my local communities,” Jake says. The Guild family collectively agrees, cheers Jake on with pride, and reassures him that he will always have their continued support in the game of daily life!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Our disabilities have, predictably, led to a lot of challenges in running a small business. Our inexperience was an obstacle at the beginning, but we’ve always leaned on our friends and colleagues to give us the advice we need and listening to more experienced store owners led us towards the path of success, even though our current store is the Smallest Board Game Store in America and couldn’t be copy-pasted from any other store. We’ve had a lot of learning experiences, but luckily none that have thrown a real wrench into operations.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are very well known as being the place to go when you want a new board game, but don’t have a specific one in mind. Because I (Jake) have played 85+% of the games in our store and can confidently say they are all good games, I just need to work with each customer to figiure out which game would be a good game Because we are a boutique experience, we are able to work with each customer to determine which game *for them*. In 2.5 years we’ve only had one negative review of a game we recommended to a customer, with innumerable success stories.
We also have the best selection of dice in the triangle, and likely the state. Our work with the game industry has led us to build relationships with lots of other game stores and publishers, so we’ve built a large network of friendly members in the industry, which has allowed us to learn where the best items come from and bring those items to our store.
We’re also known for our local flair. As someone born and raised in the Triangle, it’s always been important to us to use our store as a vehicle to help other local creators/vendors succeed. We’re known for our huge selection of 3D prints that we have printed for us by a local Raleigh vendor James Davis.
The event we are known best for is our monthly speed puzzling bonanza. Each month we gather 50-70 people to compete in completing a 500pc puzzle as fast as they can. We like to support friendly competition as opposed to cutthroat competition, so everyone gets prizes with a bottom-weighted prize payout system. The real competition is to improve your own time compared to your previous times! We have a super friendly community that is always quick to make newcomers feel welcome and to impart wisdom on the less experienced competitors.
We are also known for our store dogs, Tillie and Ellie. We will often get customers coming in just to pet the dogs and that will always be A-OK with us!
We hope to be known for our large variety of events one we move in to our new space that can host events more easily.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Our favorite thing about Raleigh is the Vet School and NC State. We’ve had several of our pets saved by the expertise of the NC State vets, where, if we lived elsewhere, they never would have had a chance.
Our least favorite part about the city is the break-ins game stores have had in recent months (3 break-ins in the last 2-3 months). Oh, and all the one-way streets…
Pricing:
- Monthly Speed Puzzling Bonanza Ticket for solo or team of 2 – $35.00 (Includes puzzle and $10 towards prize pool)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.guildhallnc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/guildhallnc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GuildhallGamesNC
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@guildhallgamesnc
