Acadia Cafe: Shades of the New Riv

I felt a twinge of nostalgia the other night when I stopped
in for a bite at the Acadia Café, which recently moved from Franklin and
Nicollet to Cedar and Riverside. Back in my college days – and for many years
after, the space was home to the New Riverside Café, run by an anarchist
collective. In the early years, there were no fixed prices – you were supposed
to "Eat what you need, pay what you can afford." A sign invited
customers to practice dishwashing yoga, and I did, once or twice. I remember
great acoustic music, and a couple of slogans “No Meat, No Bosses” and “The
Bio-Magnetic Center of the Universe.”
That was a time of revolutionary dreams and great optimism. Gradually,
most of that spirit faded away, and the New Riv finally closed because of money
troubles in 1997.

But there was something about the Arcadia that evokes a
little of that spirit – mostly, it’s the busy program of live original music ("no cover songs allowed".
On Wednesday, when I stopped in, ace accordion player Dan Newton, leader of the
Café Accordion Orchestra, had put together a program that started with him
playing with Prairie Home Companion guitarist Pat Donohue at 9 p.m., followed
by Orkestar Bez Ime playing Balkan Music at 10 p.m., and
the Mill City Grinders, an old-time string band, at 11. (Dan and the Café
Accordion Orchestra played at our wedding, so Carol and I are big fans.) We
couldn’t stick around for the music, but I did have a first-rate Swiss and
mushroom burger with skin-on fries ($7.25). A note on the menu says the beef comes from humanely raised animals. Carol’s appetizer order of fish and
chips were a bit greasy, but still good enough to be enjoyable.

The food menu is pretty basic – burgers, nachos,
cheese curds, hot and cold sandwiches, but the beer list is one of the best in
the Twin Cities – 28 beers on tap, and another 40 in bottles, including some
brews I have never seen before, like a Furthermore
Knot Stock American Pale Ale from Spring Green, Wisconsin ($4 a pint), and a dozen bottled
Belgian beers.

If you park in the ImPark lot behind Midwest Mountaineering, they’ll validate your ticket for up to two hours on weekdays, or all day on weekends.

Acadia Cafe, 329 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis, 612-874-8702.