THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?

SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do).

• Minneapolis’ Modern Times Café plans to close by the end of the year.
• Its donation-based experiment provided more than 30,000 free meals before prices returned.
• Owner Dylan Alverson said the café accumulated nearly $70,000 in debt after reopening in August.

LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time).

Modern Times Café took prices off its menu to make a political statement. The bills, unfortunately, continued arriving with numbers on them.

The Minneapolis restaurant that adopted a free-and-donation-based model during the immigration crackdown now plans to close by the end of the year.

Owner Dylan Alverson announced that he had exhausted his options without abandoning the principles he wanted the café to maintain.

The business rebranded as Post Modern Times and began serving meals without set prices in January. Its protest included a pointed exception to its welcome: ICE.

For roughly six months, the café relied on donations rather than conventional menu pricing. It reported serving more than 30,000 free meals with support from over 2,000 donations.

That is a substantial amount of food and generosity. It is also a substantial amount of purchasing, cooking, washing and payroll.

The restaurant temporarily closed in July. When it reopened in August, prices returned, alongside a commitment to provide 25 free meals daily.

Alverson said the interruption was too expensive and that nearly $70,000 in debt accumulated after reopening.

“I guess I was gambling on humanity,” he had said of the experiment.

Humanity can be generous. The restaurant business still expects the groceries to be paid for.

Alverson has described the personal toll on himself and his family and said he wants the remaining months to celebrate the café’s nearly 16-year history.

A precise final service date had not been announced in the closure reports.

DBS WIRE SOURCES (I’ve got all day).

• FOX 9 — Closure announcement and Alverson’s explanation
• CBS Minnesota reporting reproduced by Chili Chili — Free-meal totals, reopening and debt
• New York Post / Fox News — Anti-ICE protest and the restaurant’s pricing experiment