The woman who turned Wednesday into a standing invitation

If a haunted table is a lonely one, then the cure for it is a full one, and almost nobody in the country has filled more tables lately than Alyssa Gross. She is the founder of The Mahjong Society in Chicago, which calls itself the city's hub for all things American Mahjong: lessons, events and community. Prim has been wanting to raise a cup to her for some time.

It began, as the best things do, with a simple idea. In the Society's own words, the idea was to invite people to the table and teach them to play.

Mahjong Wednesdays

Gross founded the Society in 2023 with a weekly game she called Mahjong Wednesdays, the plainest invitation in the world. Come on a Wednesday and learn. The thing grew the way a good table grows. The Wednesdays became private lessons. The lessons became events that sold out. The events became a whole community of players in a city that, not so long ago, few people would have called a Mahjong town.

Today the Society teaches in three ways. Private lessons come to you, for groups of four to twelve, at home with everything brought along. Custom events serve fundraisers, team building and parties, and the Society says it loves working with all kinds of businesses. And its own ticketed events run all over town, from Mahjong 101 for beginners to open play for people who already know their way around the card. The November calendar alone holds a Mahjong 102 at Midwest Coast Brewing, a Mahj and Merlot open play at BottlesUp!, and a Friendsgiving open play at Park and Field.

They teach American Mahjong by the card the National Mah Jongg League issues every year, and they describe it warmly: a fast, social game with roots in the Jewish community, a little like rummy, easy enough for beginners and endlessly challenging for everyone else.

A lineage, not a business

What Prim admires most is the part she can hardly believe. The Society says many of its instructors today are former students, people who came to learn on a Wednesday, fell in love with the game, and wanted to share it with others. Its site names a head instructor, Jenn Bollenbacher, and six lead instructors beside Gross herself, and the reviews read like thank you notes. One student wrote that a lesson felt like a master's level course compared with another class she had taken.

That is not a business. That is a lineage, the oldest and best way this game has ever traveled, from a patient teacher to a delighted student who becomes a patient teacher in her turn.

In 2025 Gross put the method between covers. Her book, Play Mahjong! An All-Levels Guide to American Mahjong, is a colorful guide to learning the game, and the Society says it carries the same mission as the Wednesdays did: to make the game accessible, stylish and fun for new and experienced players alike. It means the invitation can now reach tables she will never sit at.

“A way to connect, unwind, and build meaningful friendships.”The Mahjong Society, on American Mahjong

Mahj-o-ween

And because the calendar is kind, they are proving the point this very week. Tonight, Thursday, October 29, The Mahjong Society holds Mahj-o-ween, an open play from 6:30 to 8:30 in the evening at Half Acre Beer Company on West Balmoral Avenue, with costumes encouraged and prizes for the brave. If you are anywhere near that room, go. If you are not, let it be your proof that this game is thriving in rooms you have never heard of, run by women who simply decided to open the door.

Prim's view

Prim has read a great many mission statements, and most of them could belong to anyone. The Society's could only belong to a Mahjong table. They believe, they say, that the game is a way to connect, unwind and build meaningful friendships, and that in a busy world it offers a reason to gather week after week, hand after hand. That is the whole of it.

A haunted parlor is a table with an empty chair. Alyssa Gross spent three years filling chairs, and then taught other people how to fill them too. Prim can think of no better thing to celebrate in the week of Halloween.