Modern Times Café owner Dylan Alverson announced that his restaurant would be closing within the next few months. (Screenshot/Google Earth)
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Modern Times Café, a Minneapolis restaurant that attempted to eliminate prices, has announced that it will be closing for good by the end of the year.
“For the last six years, I’ve been trying to prove that Modern Times can continue to exist,” owner Dylan Alverson wrote on social media on Saturday. “I’ve exhausted every option without compromising the core fundamentals that make Modern Times what it is.”
He added that he plans to spend the next two months celebrating the 16-year-old business and discussing ways for a business like his to continue.
“The only way for places like Modern Times to exist in the future is to actively challenge the reasons why it can no longer exist,” Alverson wrote.
Alverson previously announced on Instagram in January that his business, which rebranded as Post Modern Times, would operate as a “free and donation based restaurant” where everyone would be welcome “except ICE” in protest of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations happening in his state, in response partly to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
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People mourn at a makeshift memorial in the area where 37-year-old Alex Pretti was shot dead by federal immigration agents earlier in the day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 24. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)
“We absolutely cannot go on as we have. I am sick of generating money for the soldiers in our streets and for a government that won’t protect us — a government who is actively inflicting daily harm on its citizens,” Alverson wrote. “Effective tomorrow we are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city.”
The decision was made after Pretti was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents.
The Modern Times Café operated without prices for about six months until it briefly closed in July. The establishment returned to using prices once the store reopened in August but announced that it would continue serving 25 free meals per day.
By October, Alverson told The New York Times that he was operating under a “zero profit margin,” hoping that his place could be used as a model for other restaurants.
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Alverson previously removed prices in protest of ICE raids. (Getty Images)
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“If I can create a fundraising mechanism that can raise money to provide hospitality, we can take that program and add restaurants to it,” Alverson said.
However, he acknowledged that the process was taxing for his staff and led to customers waiting up to two hours for a meal, half of which would usually be given for free. Neighbors also expressed concerns that homeless and drug-addicted people would take advantage of the offer.
In a comment to Digital, Alverson stood by his remarks to The New York Times and suggested that the bigger issue was other restaurants that were struggling.
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“I think a bigger question right now is how many independent restaurants are close to collapse?” Alverson said.
