Modern Times Café, the Minneapolis restaurant that eliminated prices for meals to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has apparently protested itself right out of business.

Owner Dylan Alverson attempted to eliminate prices and operate as a “free and donation-based business” where everyone would be welcome “except ICE,” announced he will be closing the eatery for good by the end of the year.

“For the last six years, I’ve been trying to prove that Modern Times can continue to exist,” Alverson wrote on social media earlier this week. “I’ve exhausted every option without compromising the core fundamentals that make Modern Times what it is.”

He continued, “Because of this, we have made the choice to close at the end of the year. This has been an incredibly difficult decision and one that did not come lightly.”

“I announce this decision now,” he also said. “With the hope that we can spend the next two plus months celebrating the nearly 16 years that Modern Times has stood for creativity over cost, kindness over profit, and uncompromising values as a business in this country.”

In January, Alverson launched an Instagram Post condemning the immigration crackdown in the city, which he labeled an “occupation,” and abandoned traditional pricing in response to the deaths of deaths of protestors Renee Good and Alex Pretti in shootings by immigration officers who claimed they put them in harm’s way.

Alverson stated that he was done with “capitalism.”

“Effective tomorrow we are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city,” he wrote. “We refuse to generate taxes under the guise of a functioning for-profit capitalist business aligned with government strategy.”

He also changed the restaurant’s name.

“Amidst many strategic pivots and determined leadership, Modern Times has been barely soluble since 2020. Therefore, for the remainder of the government occupation, we will function as a free and donation based restaurant, Post Modern Times. Everyone is welcome EXCEPT ICE.”

Even with that strategy, the restaurant operated for the next six months, saying it served some 30,000 meals and received more than 2,000 donations, according to another social media post in July. It then decided to temporarily close to take “some time to rest”

The establishment reopened a few weeks later in August, announcing it would return as a “not tipping establishment” but would feature 25 “free meals” each day.

In October, Alverson told the New York Times he was doing business with a planned “zero profit margin,” hoping to be a model for other restaurants, the New York Post reported.

Before the ICE roundups, the Times had reported on Alverson in a story about struggling restaurants:

His restaurant generated $1.3 million in sales last year and still lost $18,500, according to a financial statement prepared by an accountant that he shared with the Times. And that’s in spite of cost-conscious measures like paying himself just $23,000 a year as the restaurant’s manager, chef, and fix-it man.

When Alverson went to his donation system and later the 25 free meals, he “acknowledged that the process was taxing for his staff and led to customers waiting up to two hours for a meal, half of which would usually be given for free,” Fox News Digital reported.

There was also concern by neighbors that “homeless and drug-addicted people” would exploit his free meal offer, according to the cable news outlet.

Yet Alverson stood by his remarks to the Times when reached by Fox. Instead of his pricing experiments and protest stances, he suggested his closing was part of a trend.

“I think a bigger question right now is how many independent restaurants are close to collapse?” Alverson said.

Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.