Modern Times vows to be free as long as ICE remains in Minneapolis
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On Monday, the Minneapolis hippie diner Modern Times made an announcement: All their menu items are now free, unless you’re a federal agent.
The hours will remain the same, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, but the menu will be a bit smaller. The restaurant will run on donations. Servers will volunteer but still be paid.
Owner Dylan Alverson says the idea is simple: The restaurant is refusing to contribute to what they are calling “the occupation of Minneapolis” and the state. By not charging guests and existing off of donations until federal agents leave the city, they aren’t creating sales tax that goes to the government.
The idea is a logical progression from the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, he says.
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“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 said that things in Minneapolis and the country are now post-modern. Hence, the new name: “Post Modern Times.”
“We’re in war time,” Alverson said. “We’ve kind of made jokes about ‘Post Modern Cafe’ and, unfortunately, this is the time for that … I’m just starting to think radically and say if the world is in chaos, then business owners have to adapt to that chaos.”
Alverson has owned the diner for 15 years. Repeatedly, this slice of south Minneapolis has been the hub for national tragedies.
The restaurant is six blocks from where George Floyd was murdered in 2020, four blocks from where Renee Macklin Good was killed by an ICE agent and a neighborhood over from where Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents last week.
“We just don't want to contribute to the armed occupation in our neighborhood,” Alverson said.
“I’ve been in front of the Border Patrol and ICE after both killings, and it's there. It's a vicious feeling coming from them. It's a very violent and unsafe threat. You know, I hate bullies. It's like the world rounded up every bully they could find and dropped them into our city and are terrorizing our neighbors.”
Staff say the restaurant has received a flood of donations, locally and nationally, in the past week, when they announced mutual aid efforts. Server Dakota Temte, Alverson’s daughter, said that on the first day of the new business model, many patrons decided to still pay.
“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,” Temte said. “And it was really beautiful.”
Regulars Madi Rean and Mak Erickson made sure to stock up on merch during their visit on Monday to support the new mission. Rean said when she saw the announcement Alverson posted, she donated money via Venmo to Post Modern Times and texted her sister that they needed to go out for lunch.
“I think it's really cool that they're doing this, and I think it's also really cool to see like the community and everybody else like backing them up while they're doing this, because that's super, super important to have like, that sense of community and the sense of, like, the people around you, like caring about you,” she said.
“Because if we're not there for each other, like, what's gonna happen? Bad things are gonna happen. We got to be there for one another.”
