2003 Wall Street Journal
"Plots & Ploys" by Sheila Muto

Sensory Stimulation
A bright red wall greets visitors. The games Kerplunk and Mr. Potato Head are stashed on the tables. Hammocks, a chaise lounge and hot-pink and lime-green pillows around a low table offer a host of places to sit.

It may sound like someone's kitschy apartment, but it's a new space recently opened in Chicago where a handful of companies are holding meetings, foregoing the staid conference rooms and hotel suites that some businesses use to host such gatherings. The former site of a sausage smokehouse and a herring-packing plant, Catalyst Ranch offers three meeting rooms ranging in size from 700 to 3,300 square feet.

The business is the brainchild of Eva Niewiadomski, who set up a space similar in style at PepsiCo Inc.'s Quaker Oats unit, her former employer. But that room only accomodated about a dozen people. "These types of informal environments make people energized, and it stimulates them to come up with better ideas," says Ms. Niewiadomski. Still, "a lot of companies don't want to give up space for that type of meeting room."

"The brightly colored walls and the toys transform your way of thinking," says Ellen Taafe, vice president of marketing for Quaker Snacks, who says she has held a meeting and attended two others at Catalyst Ranch.

 

"I think people come up with different ideas than if they were in a formal environment wearing a suit," says Ms. Taaffe. "People are more engaged even though they may have a Slinky in their hands."

2004 Chicago Crains
"Layoff leads to startup" by Lisa Holton
Entrepreneur taps severance for meeting space.

Right before Labor Day 2002, Quaker Oats Co. marketing executive Eva Niewiadomski got the news: After surviving waves of layoffs since PepsiCo's 2001 acquisition of Quaker, she was out. "The place had changed," she says. I was ready to go and start something new."

But what the CPA-turned-product development executive did next is something few furloughed workers would consider in the midst of a recession: She put every dime of her severance and a second mortgage on her house into launching her own business.
Her year-old company, Catalyst Ranch, is positioned to be an antidote to mind-numbing meeting space. Located at 656 W. Randolph St., the 9,000-square-foot loft is separated into three meeting spaces splashed with color and stocked with toys, antique furniture, even a large hammock.

Her total investment was $115,000 but after 15 months, the business is profitable.

"While I was working at Quaker, I always found it a challenge to find space that was comfortable and interesting ...space that was fun and would fuel people's imagination," she says.

Passion is a powerful motivator for entrepreneurs, but it must partner with an intelligent business plan and a reasonable amount of start-up capital. Downsized executives who want to launch a company should poll former clients, vendors and others for insights.

After exiting Quaker, Ms. Niewiadomski started typing out a business plan. She queried her old vendors, primarily meeting facilitators and consultants, to learn their pet peeves about meeting sites. She asked them to rate the top 10 things that would lead them never to book a meeting at the same location again.

"I kept hearing the same things: uncomfortable chairs, bad food, bad service, unexpected charges, your stuff not being set up in the room after you've taken the trouble and expense to ship it," she says. "I set out to do the opposite."

Ms. Niewiadomski decided Catalyst Ranch would make everything but full meals inclusive in the rental price: snack and beverage service, toys and meeting supplies, up- to-date audio/visual equipment, computer, printer and online access.

She charges a daily room rental rate of $1,000 to $1,800 for 25 attendees, depending on the room they choose. So far, the business is running at 30% occupancy and generating about $8,000 per week.

Hotels easily beat her rental rates for meeting rooms, which go for about $250 to $400 per day. But once a la carte items are added – such as snacks and audio/visual gear – Catalyst Ranch is competitive.

The business employs five. She paid off the last of her loans last spring and has paid herself back "all but a small amount" of her own investment.

2005 Chicago Tribune
All About Eva; A life of collecting at home and abroad is reflected in an Andersonville condo
Entrepreneur taps severance for meeting space.

Look around Eva Niewiadomski's apartment and you will know the story of her life.

A goddess statue from Thailand. A bedroom set from a local antiques store. Collections of decorative birds from Eastern Europe. Niewiadomski grew up in Humboldt Park before her family moved to what she says was a "good Polish, Greek, Irish, Italian neighborhood" on Chicago's Northwest Side. Her parents are Polish immigrants who worked hard and taught their children to make do with what they had.

After putting herself through college, Niewiadomski spent four years as an accountant followed by 15 years at Quaker Oats, most recently in product development for snack foods. As a veteran meetings facilitator, she under-stood how a stimulating, colorful space could add spice and creativity to a group meeting.

While at Quaker, she converted a large closet into a "creativity room" where co-workers could meet and brainstorm. In November 2002, after leaving Quaker, she opened Catalyst Ranch, an expanded version of that creativity room and perhaps Chicago's most unusual meeting and special-event space, used by such Fortune 500 companies as Pepsico, Unilever and Wrigley.

Catalyst Ranch's large, vibrant rooms offer abundant sunlight, unconventional furniture and a jamboree of toys and art. Niewiadomski's apartment in Andersonville has the same sweet, quirky look.

Drawn to Andersonville for its ethnic diversity, she found a neighborhood of well-maintained buildings. Her twobedroom condominium is filled with a delightful blend of vintage and ethnic furnishings.

"I have very few new pieces," she says. "Most things are really old, either refurbished or original. I picked up almost everything in my travels or at local markets. Most of the art is ethnic."

Her knack for putting things together enabled her to mix styles easily. In the living room, wicker couches mingle with armchairs from the '40s and '50s.

When she moved in, the apartment was half furnished. "But I wasn't worried about getting it all done in a matter of a month," she explains. "I slowly build up the pieces and, of course, after 15 years of collecting, you retire certain things. It becomes a jigsaw puzzle of switching things around."

Every year she has taken a big trip. Her travels have taken her through most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tahiti, Hong Kong, Thailand and Brazil. "I've lugged and shipped some amazing things," she says.

Her dining room rug was shipped from Greece. Vases, bowls, glasses, a tea set, collections of puppets and flutes and much more hail from every corner of the globe. "I love things that are unique," she says. "It was always about things you couldn't find in the U. S."

What doesn't come from abroad was found in local antiques shops. In a corner of the living room is a turn-of -thecentury rocking chair Niewiadomski says she "dragged home because it was in such horrifying condition."

Refinished with the help of her father, it is now a "nice, solid piece," she says. "My dad and I took apart every spindle and numbered them so we could remember how to put them back together. My dad's got this interesting technique when the varnish is really old and dried-he doesn't believe in using chemical strippers. He takes broken pieces of glass and uses the sharp edge [to scrape], and it comes off with a highly polished finish. Then we restained it, put it back together and he reupholstered it for me."

Decorating her bedroom was another family affair. After years of living with off-white walls, Eva decided she "wanted to play around with color and would practice in the bedroom." She painted the room orange because "I love orange and didn't have orange anywhere else in the house. So I bought tangelo for the ceiling and a Chinese red that's a little more orangey." Her father painted the ceiling, her mother consulted on color.

Eva used a design element from an Indian sari bedspread to create a pattern and hand-painted it around the ceiling of the room. "I created a stencil out of cardboard with an X-Acto knife and then I hand-traced the arch with the stencil and filled in the rest of it by hand," she says.

Always busy with a project, Eva's now pondering what to do with the apartment's two ceiling fans. "I want to either paint or cover each blade with a Mexican art form," she says. Whatever she decides, it surely will be done with her inimitable light touch and unerring eye for whimsy.

 

RESOURCES
Kitchen: 1940s distressed kitchen table-Sandwich, Ill., Antiques Market; Belgian lace curtains by owner, fabric-Vogue Fabrics, Evanston; 1930s green corner bookcase-Chicago Antique Centre, Chicago; Mexican folk art wall hanging-Evanston Ethnic Art Fair. Sunroom: Filipino wicker couch-Raphia, Miami Beach, Fla.; 1940s drapes - Antique and Resale Shop, Chicago; Indian mirror pillow on couch-Dragonfly Collections, Chicago; red silk and silver work pillow on couch-Cassona Home Furnishings, Chicago. Living room: Filipino wicker loveseat-Raphia, Miami Beach, Fla.; antique Irish chest-Sandwich, Ill., Antiques Market; Mexican yarn and Afghan bag- Edgewater Antique Mall, Chicago; antique lamp-Brownstone Antiques, Chicago. Bedroom: hat boxes -T. J. Maxx; wrought-iron bench-Chicago Antique Centre, Chicago; Mexican placemats sewn onto pillows-Pier One Imports; pink and orange pillow -Cost Plus; chenille pillow-Open Air Market, New York City; Indian turquoise pillow-Dragonfly Collections, Chicago; antique Afghan wall hanging-Edgewater Antique Mall Inc.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Subjects: Antiques, Collectibles, Interior design
Document types: Feature
Column Name: INTERIORS
Section: Magazine
ISSN/ISBN: 10856706
Text Word Count 1047
Document URL:

News 2008 WBEZ

November 6, 2008
As part of the Eight Forty-Eight Morning Program, Steve Walsh interviews Bobbie Soeder and Paulette Eastman from Catalyst Ranch about Proposition 8 (same-sex marriage ban in California), gay “weddings” and commitment ceremonies.

Catalyst Ranch has been named to the Inc. Magazine's list of 5000 fastest growing private companies in America!

To bring it a little closer to “our home” we’re officially ranked #87 on the list of top 100 fastest growing companies in the great state of Illinois!

We're thrilled to be in the company of such giants!

Thank you to our clients for making it happen!

About Catalyst Ranch

We are a...

Creative Meeting & Event Venue in Chicago’s West Loop

Catalyst Ranch is a creative meeting and event venue in Chicago, located in the West Loop, designed to help teams think better, collaborate more effectively, and create meaningful experiences.

We provide fully furnished, highly flexible spaces for:

  • Corporate meetings and offsites
  • Workshops and team-building sessions
  • Focus groups and research sessions
  • Corporate events and celebrations
  • Photo, film, and webinar shoots

Our environment is intentionally different from traditional venues. Instead of neutral, generic rooms, Catalyst Ranch offers vibrant, thoughtfully designed spaces that stimulate creativity, encourage participation, and support productive outcomes.

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Wedding Party Dancing
Read our RE-Invention Story
What Makes Catalyst Ranch Different

Catalyst Ranch is not a hotel meeting room or a conventional conference facility. We are a purpose-built creative meeting space designed to improve how people gather, think, and work together.

Key differentiators include:

  • Fully furnished, flexible rooms
    Each space is designed with eclectic furnishings, movable layouts, and multiple breakout areas to support different ways of working.
  • Creative meeting environments
    Our rooms are intentionally designed to spark ideas, increase engagement, and avoid the fatigue of traditional meeting spaces.
  • All-inclusive planning support
    Our experienced team helps plan and execute your meeting or event, from room setup to timing, flow, and logistics.
  • Central Chicago location
    Conveniently located in the West Loop, with easy access for local teams and out-of-town attendees.
  • Designed for outcomes, not just occupancy
    Every detail is focused on helping groups collaborate, connect, and achieve better results.
A Better Alternative to Traditional Chicago Venues

If you are searching for:

  • “Meeting space in Chicago”
  • “Creative event venue Chicago”
  • “Team offsite location Chicago”
  • “Workshop space Chicago”

Catalyst Ranch offers a distinctly different option.

Compared to other venue types:

  • Hotels: Functional but often generic and uninspiring
  • Conference centers: Efficient but not designed for creativity
  • Coworking spaces: Flexible but not fully supported or private
  • Traditional event venues: Beautiful but not optimized for collaboration

Catalyst Ranch combines flexibility, creativity, and support in one place.

Who We Work With

Catalyst Ranch is trusted by organizations across industries that value collaboration, creativity, and meaningful experiences.

We regularly host:

  • Corporate teams and leadership groups
  • Marketing and innovation teams
  • Research and insights professionals
  • Event planners and producers
  • Facilitators and consultants

Whether you are planning a strategic offsite, a client workshop, or a company celebration, our space is designed to support your goals.

Our Chicago Location

Catalyst Ranch is located in Chicago’s West Loop—one of the city’s most dynamic and accessible neighborhoods.

This central location makes it easy for:

  • Local teams across Chicago
  • National companies hosting offsite meetings
  • Attendees traveling from out of town

More Than Just a Venue

Catalyst Ranch is more than a place to meet—it is a space designed to change how meetings feel and what they achieve.

We believe that environment shapes experience. By providing a space that is engaging, flexible, and thoughtfully designed, we help teams:

    • Stay energized and focused
    • Collaborate more effectively
    • Generate better ideas
    • Create more memorable experiences

    Plan Your Next Meeting or Event in Chicago

    If you are looking for a creative meeting space or event venue in Chicago, Catalyst Ranch offers a unique alternative to traditional options.

    Our combination of flexible spaces, supportive staff, and inspiring design makes us an ideal choice for teams that want more from their meetings.

    A Reinvention Story

    What caused Catalyst Ranch to suddenly appear in the West Loop back in late 2002, before it was the hippest neighborhood in the city? Because it did feel like it suddenly materialized within the shell of an industrial building from the 1880s that had previously been used for meatpacking and sausage smoking.

    The idea for Catalyst Ranch was born out of necessity. Eva Niewiadomski, who had worked for The Quaker Oats Company for 14 years in a variety of capacities, suddenly found herself now part of the Pepsi organization after a merger. And as with every merger, there are frequent reorganizations and after a year of such tumultuous occurrences, Eva found herself missing from the newest org chart. What a shock! After all, she was working in New Product Development and had just launched two of the largest brand extensions in the Snacks Division after others had failed for so many years.

    But sometimes we need that sudden shock to see new possibilities for ourselves. The significant severance package presented an opportunity to take a risky leap that otherwise would not have been possible, especially for a first generation Polish-American from a working class family without financial resources or business connections.

    So, in a moment that truly exemplifies the power of disruption to create truly breakthrough ideas, the anxiety of figuring out what’s next led to the birth of the Catalyst Ranch concept, hours after getting the news of lay-off.

    People ask Eva frequently – How did you come up with the idea for Catalyst Ranch? It’s like trying to explain an epiphany. The best she can do is to give you some of the components that were crucial, but the rest really can’t be explained.

    Opening Day at Catalyst Ranch

    The Components:

    • Eva was trained as a facilitator for Ideation Sessions and had created multiple-day innovation sessions held offsite at non-traditional locations. But those were a lot of work as you had to bring in all your own office supplies, creative prompts and product samples.
    • Eva created two Innovation Hallways at Quaker Oats that turned unused space into something dynamic. They were low-tech, hands-on and invited everyone, irrespective of their individual roles, to share their ideas.
    • Eva crafted a Creativity Room (an off-the-grid conference room) for her division out of an abandoned storage room, furnishing it with vintage items and lots of color. People absolutely loved working in the Creativity Room, to an extent that surprised Eva.
    • Eva’s cubicle office was filled with art, toys and color that drew people into wanting to hang out at her desk.
    • Eva’s home was decorated in a unique style utilizing a mix of vintage and ethnic furnishings and artwork that her friends loved to explore and managed to discover something new in each visit.
    Inspiring Meetings and Events since 2002

    How the Idea Came to Life

    Once the idea was shared with her colleagues and friends, the positive and supportive response propelled Eva to realize her vision. The conversion of a raw space of 9,000 sq. ft. into a creative meeting venue in a matter of 5 weeks was only possible through the collaboration of contractors, friends and family. Eva’s dad became her first employee at age 78. He repaired and refinished furniture, did reupholstery and anything else that needed his brilliant handyman touch. He continued to be the go-to guy for many years.

    Eva's Dad - the first employee

    Catalyzing Creative Thinking

    The creative environment of Catalyst Ranch continued to evolve and expand over the years as clients embraced this revolutionary concept. Nine thousand square feet grew to 15,000 sq. ft. and the staff grew accordingly. Our Ranch Hand alumni are all multi-talented individuals, many of them working in the arts. It is a joy to see them succeeding in their post-Ranch life.

    Where We Are Now

    The pandemic wreaked havoc on our industry and Catalyst Ranch was no exception. After closing down our larger floor in 2020, we managed to continue innovating and persevering. In the fall of 2022 we were able to re-expand in our building (check out the new Polka and Tango rooms) and are more convinced than ever that a creative offsite venue is what’s needed to help foster new ideas and help them flourish.

    Eva's Dad - the first employee
    Celebrating Catalyst Ranch

    We’re here to help you Imagine MORE!