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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. MORE »