Linnea Joanen

For my Chuck Green Fellowship experience, I partnered with Seward Café. Seward Café is the oldest existing collectively owned and operated restaurant in the United States. As a student at Macalester studying critical theory while maintaining numerous on-and-off campus employment positions, I sought a partner organization that would help me think deeply about the relation between work, community, and the self. The alternative work orientation model offered by the café–a collective co-operative–fascinated me. 

This past summer, I spent my days baking fan-favorite treats like Jupiter Bars and lemon poppyseed muffins in the blazing industrial kitchen at Seward Café alongside my new friends at the co-op. Working with these wonderful folks day by day helped me feel like a part of the Minneapolis co-op community and the Seward neighborhood at large. Seward keeps prices low, the food tasty, and the mutual aid card full of funds for those in need of a good meal. Those who work in the kitchen or coffee bar sacrifice their personal comfort–the restaurant has no AC in these spaces–to keep the vision of an equitable workplace with no bosses alive. In my various interviews and daily interactions with workers past and present, however, I sensed a disconnect between the current staff and the rich history of the space. 

Through my partnership with Seward Café, I was able to help the restaurant reconnect with its own institutional memory obscured by time. All the lessons learned by those caring for the space since 1974 had been hidden in their basement, their archivist position left vacant for years. I searched through their basement to recover and digitize hundreds of documents and tapes detailing the history of the space, including the collective’s mistakes and triumphs. I  connected with key figures from the café’s past to gain their insight. This project culminated in an in-development accessible digital archive of the history of the café and its history as a collective with the backdrop of the deep Minneapolis co-op scene. As I continued to work with Seward Café into the Fall of 2025, I was filled with gratitude for the collective and its surrounding community for welcoming me into a world where work had purpose, appreciation, and a meaningful impact.