Dylan Alverson has owned Modern Times Cafe in South Minneapolis for 15 years.
The spot, which serves breakfast and brunch favorites, is located six blocks from where George Floyd was murdered in 2020, three blocks from where Renee Good was killed earlier this month, and just a neighborhood away from where Alex Pretti was killed on Saturday, January 24.
And, while United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue what Minnesota officials call “an occupation” across the state, Alverson has decided to do what he can in support of his community.
“Starting today, January 26, and until the occupation of Minneapolis is over, we are a free restaurant,” he said in a video on Monday.
“We are entering yet another week of this occupation with a deep sense of dread and mourning. 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 continued in a written statement.
“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.”
He said that the business has struggled since 2020, and now it simply just makes sense to operate as a free, donation-based restaurant.
“For restaurants, since the pandemic, I think everyone has been — or society in general — trying to cling to the idea that we would get back to some normalcy, and it hasn’t come,” Alverson told MPR News.
He’s given the restaurant a new tongue-in-cheek name: Post Modern Times.
It will operate from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day, albeit with a bit of a smaller menu. Staff members have agreed to be present on a volunteer basis, working from shared tips and community donations.
“We’re relying on donations from across the country, across the world,” Alverson added in his social media video. “We are offering free food for anyone in the city, besides ICE. Come and join us.”
Anyone who wants to donate to the restaurant can do so via Venmo, using their handle: @moderntimescafe.
Plus, the customers who can pay for their meals have been doing so with added generosity.
“Ninety percent of people that came in here donated and donated more than what we would have been charging them before, just because they know that we are trying to do something good and trying to create change,” Alverson’s daughter and a server at the restaurant, Dakota Temte, told MPR News.
“And it was really beautiful.”
Alverson said he has visited the scenes of both Good and Pretti’s deaths, and earlier this month began a “People’s Price” initiative, inviting diners to pay what they can for meals. But now, he believes, it’s time to kick things up a notch.
“I’m just starting to think radically and say if the world is in chaos, then business owners have to adapt to that chaos,” he told MPR News.
His efforts come after a statewide “ICE Out” general strike last week and ahead calls for further strikes across the country.
Stopping business as usual is just one tool that has emerged as a resistance tactic against authoritarian forces like ICE.
“Post Modern Times is a small stance amidst a gigantic fight that may shape the future of this country,” Alverson wrote. “I am inspired by the ways our community has grown together, our hearts breaking open, to give and receive care in all the ways we can.”
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Header images courtesy of Modern Times Cafe
