Modern Times Café, a 16-year-old Minneapolis restaurant that drew national attention for eliminating prices in protest of federal immigration enforcement, will close permanently by the end of the year, owner Dylan Alverson announced.
“For the last six years, I’ve been trying to prove that Modern Times can continue to exist,” Alverson wrote on social media on Saturday. “I’ve exhausted every option without compromising the core fundamentals that make Modern Times what it is.”
Alverson said he plans to spend the next two months marking the restaurant’s history and discussing how a business like his might survive going forward. “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,” he wrote.
The restaurant’s final chapter began in January, when Alverson rebranded it as Post Modern Times and announced it would operate as a “free and donation based restaurant” welcoming everyone “except ICE.” The move came amid Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minnesota and followed the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
“We absolutely cannot go on as we have,” Alverson wrote at the time. “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. Effective tomorrow we are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city.”
The decision followed the shooting death of Pretti by Border Patrol agents.
Six months without prices
Modern Times operated without set prices for roughly six months before briefly closing in July. When it reopened in August, the restaurant returned to charging standard prices but kept offering 25 free meals a day.
By October, Alverson told The New York Times he was running the business at a “zero profit margin,” hoping it could serve as a model other restaurants might adopt. “If I can create a fundraising mechanism that can raise money to provide hospitality, we can take that program and add restaurants to it,” he said.
Alverson acknowledged the arrangement strained his staff and sometimes left customers waiting up to two hours for a meal, about half of which were given away free. Some neighbors raised concerns that homeless people and drug users were taking advantage of the free offerings.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Alverson stood by his earlier comments to The New York Times and pointed to a wider problem facing the industry. “I think a bigger question right now is how many independent restaurants are close to collapse?” he said.
