Minneapolis free-food experiment runs out of money, crowds overwhelm café and neighbors

Minneapolis free-food experiment runs out of money, crowds overwhelm café and neighbors



Post Modern Times, a South Minneapolis restaurant that removed its menu prices and began serving free, donation-supported meals during the federal immigration enforcement operation known as Operation Metro Surge, has temporarily closed after six months. Owner Dylan Alverson says the café needs several weeks to rebuild its finances, staffing and operating system.

The restaurant says it served more than 30,000 meals while receiving roughly 2,000 donations, but acknowledged that it exhausted its winter donations, strained the building’s capacity and at times overwhelmed the surrounding neighborhood.

The ambitious experiment attracted national praise as an alternative to the traditional restaurant model. Its abrupt pause now offers a less romantic lesson about limited resources, paying customers and the burden a private business can place on its neighbors when demand becomes effectively unlimited.


MINNEAPOLIS — A South Minneapolis restaurant that tried to prove meals could be free has temporarily closed after learning that the food, labor, space and neighborhood consequences were not.

Post Modern Times stopped putting prices on its menu six months ago and began feeding virtually anyone who entered, whether that person donated or not. The restaurant’s owner, Dylan Alverson, originally framed the switch as a protest against federal immigration enforcement and the sales taxes his business would otherwise collect for the government.

For a while, the experiment became a national media darling.

Stories celebrated a restaurant that appeared to be thriving without traditional prices. Alverson said donations had initially improved the café’s financial condition, while supporters held up the model as proof that generosity and community support could replace the usual exchange between a business and its customers.


But six months and more than 30,000 meals later, reality walked in and asked for a table.

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