Modern Times Café, the 16-year-old Minneapolis restaurant that attempted to eliminate prices entirely, will shut down for good by the end of the year.

Owner Dylan Alverson announced the closure on social media Saturday, writing, per the New York Post and Fox News, that he has 'exhausted every option without compromising the core fundamentals that make Modern Times what it is.'

He plans to spend the final two months celebrating the business and discussing how restaurants like his might continue. Both outlets report the same core announcement, making the closure the firmest fact in the story.

The surprising chapter began in January, when Alverson announced on Instagram — as both the New York Post and Fox News report — that the restaurant, rebranded as Post Modern Times, would operate as a 'free and donation-based restaurant' welcoming everyone 'except ICE,' in protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minnesota, a decision made after Alex Pretti was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents.

The no-price model lasted about six months before a brief closure in July. When it reopened in August, prices returned, but the restaurant kept serving 25 free meals a day.

According to the New York Post, Alverson told The New York Times in October that he was running a 'zero profit margin' and hoped the restaurant could become a model, proposing a fundraising mechanism to subsidize hospitality across many restaurants.

But the same reporting details the costs: staff burnout, customers waiting up to two hours for a meal, roughly half given free, and neighbors' concerns that homeless and drug-addicted people would take advantage.

Fox News confirms these same strains, making this the clearest evidence of why the experiment collapsed.

Alverson told his audience that 'the only way for places like Modern Times to exist in the future is to actively challenge the reasons why it can no longer exist,' and in a comment to Fox News Digital he stood by his remarks to the Times, redirecting the question: 'I think a bigger question right now is how many independent restaurants are close to collapse?'

Fox News also notes he framed his revenue strike as refusing to 'generate money' for a government he opposed. For the food world, the closure is both an ending and a provocation.