Modern Times Café, the Minneapolis restaurant known for experimenting with a no-price dining model, will close permanently by the end of the year.
Owner Dylan Alverson said Saturday on social media that he had spent the past six years trying to keep the restaurant alive. “I’ve exhausted every option without compromising the core fundamentals that make Modern Times what it is,” he wrote.
Alverson said the next two months would be dedicated to celebrating the 16-year-old restaurant while exploring how similar businesses might survive in the future.
“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.
In January, Alverson announced on Instagram that the restaurant—rebranded as Post Modern Times—would become a “free and donation-based restaurant.” He said everyone would be welcome “except ICE,” referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as a protest against federal immigration operations in Minnesota and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
“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.”
His announcement came after Pretti was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents.
Modern Times Café operated without set prices for roughly six months before temporarily closing in July.
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When the restaurant reopened in August, it reinstated prices but pledged to continue providing 25 free meals each day.
By October, Alverson told The New York Times that the restaurant was operating with a “zero profit margin.” He hoped the experiment could serve as a blueprint for other restaurants.
“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.
Still, he acknowledged that the model placed significant strain on employees and sometimes forced customers to wait as long as two hours for a meal. About half of those meals were typically provided free of charge.
Some neighbors also worried that the program could attract people experiencing homelessness or drug addiction who might exploit the offer.
In comments to Fox News Digital, Alverson defended his statements to The New York Times and argued that the broader crisis facing independent restaurants deserved greater attention.
“I think a bigger question right now is how many independent restaurants are close to collapse?” Alverson said.