Mother Courage (restaurant)

Mother Courage was a feminist restaurant located at 342 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village in New York City. It was the first known feminist restaurant in the United States.^[1]

With the help of $10,000 crowdsourced micro-loans and personal savings, women's rights activists and lesbian couple Dolores Alexander and Jill Ward established Mother Courage in May 1972.^[2][1] It was named after the title character in the play Mother Courage and Her Children by anti-war Marxist poet, Bertolt Brecht.^[2][1]

It was the first known feminist restaurant in the United States.^[1]

Mother Courage was a hub for the women's liberation movement of the 1970s. It was a DIY affair, a renovated dilapidated luncheonette transformed with the help of a volunteer construction crew of family and friends in the women's liberation movement,^[3] and decorated with house plants and sketches by local feminist artists and the menu written on a chalkboard.^[1] Clientele ran the gamut politically, and men were welcome but not prioritized over female patrons.^[4] Well-known patrons included Susan Brownmiller, Gloria Steinem,^[4] Audre Lorde, and Kate Millett.^[3] The restaurant played host to readings and other cultural events.^[4]

It closed in 1977 but inspired many other feminist restaurants throughout the United States and Canada.^[5]

• Feminism in the United States