An anti-capitalist cafe in South Minneapolis decided in January that it would not only deny service to federal agents but would "function as a free and donation based restaurant" until the end of the city's so-called "occupation" by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
It turns out that feeding leftists for free and antagonizing potential customers is an unworkable business model.
'We are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city.'
Dylan Alverson, the owner of Modern Times on 3200 Chicago Avenue, announced on Saturday that the cafe — which in desperation resumed charging for food in what Alverson dubbed "a fascist economy" — will soon be closing its doors for good.
"For the last 6 years, I’ve been trying to prove that Modern Times can continue to exist. I’ve exhausted every option without compromising the core fundamentals that make Modern Times what it is," Alverson noted in a post on Facebook. "Because of this, we have made the choice to close at the end of the year. This has been an incredibly difficult decision and one that did not come lightly."
In a lengthy eulogy for his dream, Alverson characterized the cafe — which underwent a rebrand as Post Modern Times — as a "glorious and radical experiment" that "put people over profit, quality over margins, and creativity at all costs."
After complaining about the cafe's struggles and blaming a world "that doesn't make sense," he acknowledged that the failing establishment "ran for over 6 months as a completely free restaurant" and "gave away 30,000 meals and spent through our original donations."
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According to Alverson, the cafe has been losing $10,000 a week.
Though he admitted elsewhere that he had implemented "the worst and most psychotic business structure," he also characterized giving meals away for free as an act of protest after the fatal shootings of anti-ICE radicals Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
"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," he wrote on Jan. 26. "Effective tomorrow we are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city. We refuse to generate taxes under the guise of a functioning for-profit capitalist business aligned with government strategy."
Alverson's decision to stick it to ICE by forgoing profits captured the attention of liberals farther afield.
In addition to receiving donations from around the country, the cafe garnered positive media attention including from the New York Times, which presented this "social experiment" largely as a success story and optimistically reported in June that "profits are up."
Two months after the Times' glow-up, Modern Times showed signs of strain, announcing "PRICES ARE RETURNING TO THE CAFE."
The New York Times' podcast "The Daily" revisited Alverson's doomed experiment this month, noting that while the cafe wasn't making money, its owner appeared keen that "this new model is something that other restaurants could adopt."
Alverson stated in his closure announcement, "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."
This is not the first anti-capitalist establishment to go belly-up in recent years.
The Anarchist, a leftist establishment in Toronto, Canada, that touted itself as an "anti-capitalist, anti-colonial cafe, shop, and radical community space on stolen land," permanently closed in 2023.
Although the Anarchist charged money for its food, its anti-Catholic, anti-police owner stated that "the lack of generational wealth/seed capital from ethically bankrupt sources left [him] unable to weather the quiet winter season, or to grow in the ways needed to be sustainable longer-term."
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