information established 1974 current owner s collectively owned food type vegan vegetarian breakfast street address 2129 e franklin ave city minneapolis state minnesota website sewardcafempls.com the seward community cafe is a collectively run cooperative restaurant in the seward neighborhood of minneapolis minnesota notable for being the oldest worker run restaurant in the united states . 1 since its founding the cafe has been owned and managed by a worker owner collective of about 10 16 people all of whom start at the same wage and are given the option of becoming a co owner within six months of starting work . 1 management is structured in a non hierarchical manner and decisions are made by consensus . 2 the cafe is open for breakfast lunch and dinner . contents 1 history 2 see also 3 references 4 external links history edit the seward cafe was founded in 1974 originally as an all volunteer operation . in order to offset costs worker owners were given coupons for free food known as burger bucks and some of the original collective members purchased a house to live in cheaply . 3 eventually the cafe began to make enough money that workers could be paid minimum wage . the cafe was embroiled in the co op wars of the 1970s where warring factions within the twin cities cooperative business community clashed sometimes violently . a group of radical marxist leninist cooperative member workers known as the co operative organization or c.o. accused other cooperatives of adhering to bourgeois hippie ideals and ignoring the working class . after attempting and failing to take over the people s warehouse a distributor serving many of the cooperative businesses in the twin cities run by representatives of various cooperatives through negotiation at a board meeting they simply walked into warehouse offices and grabbed the checkbook and financial records . the c.o. then confronted their rivals at the seward cafe announcing that the people s warehouse now belongs to the people attempts to retake the warehouse resulted in physical confrontation and cooperative businesses all around town including the seward cafe organized an effort to boycott the now c.o. controlled warehouse . 4 eventually the warehouse was retaken through legal means and the c.o. dwindled into apparent nonexistence though rumors of their presence in the political underground persisted . 5 the cooperative movement dwindled throughout the 80s and by 1993 the seward cafe was one of only five worker run cooperative businesses in the twin cities . the total number of cooperative businesses was larger around 20 or so but the majority had more hierarchical management structures and were not worker run . 6 the cafe remained committed to its business model however and in 2004 collective member tom pierson helped organize a national conference of worker run businesses . 7 today when the seward cafe is one of many clarification needed worker run cooperatives in the twin cities including the hub bicycle co op shops the hard times caf and the matchbox coffee shop . seward provided financial assistance to hard times in 2007 when circumstances conspired to shut down the riverside diner . 8 see also edit list of vegetarian restaurants references edit a b burchell nate june 22 2005 . seward community cafe a minneapolis tradition . pulse of the twin cities 6 . seward cafe about . retrieved 11 november 2011 . raasch gilman betsy 1994 . a history of north country co op . north country co op . p. 5 . cox craig 1994 . storefront revolution food co ops and the counterculture . rutgers university press . pp. 70 73 . raasch gilman betsy 1994 . a history of north country co op . north country co op . p. 10 . raasch gilman betsy 1994 . a history of north country co op . north country co op . pp. 17 18 . leem susan . rise of the co ops . pulse of the twin cities . retrieved 11 november 2011 . rushmann ahnalese october 10 2007 . frustrating times for west bank s hard times cafe . the minnesota daily . retrieved july 17 2010 . external links edit official website seward community co op finding aids mnhs.org description of materials pertaining to the seward cafe and the seward community co op held at the minnesota historical society . coordinates 44 57 45.62 n 93 14 28.09 w 44.9626722 n 93.2411361 w 44.9626722 ; 93.2411361 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title seward community cafe & oldid 743567874 categories companies based in minneapolisrestaurants established in 1974restaurants in minnesotavegetarian restaurants in the united statesworker cooperatives of the united stateshidden categories vague or ambiguous time from march 2014wikipedia articles needing clarification from march 2014coordinates on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 10 october 2016 at 06 34 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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