New Riverside Cafe

[1] The New Riverside Cafe was founded by the Episcopal priest William "Bill" Teska, with the intent of providing an independent center for the surrounding community, free from "establishment" meddling; Teska believed that government and corporate interests were trying to control the neighborhood's emerging post-1960s counterculture development.

In reaction to this, the members of the collective occupied the building in order to fight its planned demolition.

They accompanied the developers to court and were eventually allowed to stay when the owners sold the building.

[1][2] In the 1980s, the political activities of the cafe slowed while more emphasis was put on the economic viability of the collective.

At the same time the collective sold vegetarian products to health food stores and cooperatives in the Twin Cities area.

The corner of Riverside Avenue at Cedar Avenue, looking toward the New Riverside Cafe in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, circa 1976. The window reads: "Tonight: Maureen Elderry and Tim Hennessy. Country [Illegible]!"