Fire Walk With Twede’s

story by Isaac Hinson, photos by Keaton Weyers, design by Caleb Cleland

Just up northwest along the Snoqualmie Pass lies a small town with many secrets… A town with FBI agents, red rooms, log-ladies and some damn fine coffee… 

Well, sort of.

“Twin Peaks” debuted on the ABC television network on April 8, 1990. Directed by genre-film legend David Lynch, the series tells the tale of FBI agent Dale Cooper – played by Yakima native Kyle MacLachan – uncovering the mystery of homecoming queen Laura Palmer’s murder. The show ran for two seasons through 1991, becoming critically acclaimed and garnering 18 Emmy nominations, including one for Outstanding Drama Series in its first season. The show also won Best TV Series – Drama at the 48th annual Golden Globe awards. 

It was also filmed in-and-around North Bend, just 68 miles away from Ellensburg. 

Spawning a continuation of the film, “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,” and a revival by the Showtime network in 2017, “Twin Peaks: The Return,” the world of “Twin Peaks” has permeated in the mind of viewers since its initial premiere. 

The luscious forests and hazy fog of North Bend and Fall City became intertwined and inseparable from the show. The show takes place in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington. Twin Peaks is home to many iconic locales such as The Red Room, The Black Lodge, The White Lodge, The Great Northern Hotel and the Double-R Diner. 

The Great Northern Hotel and the Double-R Diner specifically were both filmed at iconic locations in Snoqualmie. The Great Northern was created from exterior shots of the Salish Lodge and Spa right on Snoqualmie Falls, and interior shots of the Kiana Lodge in Poulsbo, Wa. 

The Double-R Diner, however, was created inside and out thanks to Twede’s Cafe in Snoqualmie, which has been a haven for the wonderful and strange, the hungry and happy, for years. 

Now, with the building approaching it’s 85th anniversary, the same time “Twin Peaks” approaches it’s 35th anniversary, the warm food and gracious staff remain the same.

Embracing the ‘Twin Peaks’ freaks, and becoming one

“I’m actually from here,” says Rachel Bennett, current co-owner of Twede’s. Bennett owns Twede’s Cafe with her husband, Max Spears. She grew up in the Snoqualmie Valley, her mother living in Snoqualmie and her father living in North Bend. Bennett went to school at Mt. Si High School, the same building used for filming scenes at Twin Peaks High School in the series pilot. Spears is from western Pennsylvania.

Growing up in Snoqualmie, Bennett had been predisposed to the ‘Twin Peaks’ phenomenon from an early age. Going to the high school used for filming in the pilot, working at a diner used for filming in “Fire Walk With Me,” there was a subtle but poignant invisible string tying her to eventually captaining Twede’s. But, overexposure at a young age fostered an initial disdain for the series and its fans. 

“[In the] early 2000s, the ‘Twin Peaks’ fandom was still pretty niche,” says Bennett. “But once a year, bus-loads of people would come through and come to the diner where I worked, and ask me all these questions about ‘Twin Peaks’ and I was just like ‘You guys are weird.’

Bennett and her friends even had a name for the fans. 

“We called them the ‘Twin Peaks’ freaks,” says Bennett. “It’s really funny because now I’m just like, one of them, slash like, kind of the queen of the ‘Twin Peaks’ freaks. So, you know, what a world.” 

Perhaps that disdain came from general small town blues. Bennett says that she grew up never thinking that she would’ve moved back home, let alone owning a restaurant in the town where she grew up. But after leaving and gaining perspective, she was able to recognize the beauty she saw in Snoqualmie. “I had to go and experience a lot of other things to really realize how special it is here,” she says. 

But, even having run away from home for college, she still couldn’t escape the show. Bennett went to Evergreen State College in Olympia, where the liberal arts population had a natural affection for the show as she describes it. There, Bennett finally watched her first piece of the “Twin Peaks” story… “Fire Walk With Me,”... the prequel film which tells you who killed Laura Palmer… the driving mystery of the show's first season and a half. 

“I watched ‘Fire Walk With Me’ while I was in college, so you know, totally out of order,” says Bennett. “So I knew who killed Laura Palmer. I did really like ‘Fire Walk With Me,’ it’s so scary, I really liked it. I just did not watch the show.” 

Bennett detailed her trials and failures to watch the show in the past. She tried to watch the pilot episode twice, but the length of the episode (It’s a 90-minute episode, every other episode is 45 minutes long, besides the season two premiere which is 90 minutes as well) combined with always trying to watch it late at night was not a recipe for success. She also tried watching the series with her brother when Lynch was back in town filming “The Return,” but he was well into the series already, and the show does not provide many entry points for viewers once it gets going. 

Finally, she sat down and committed to watching the show with Spears when they moved in together in North Bend. “We were like ‘Okay, let’s do it, we’re gonna watch the pilot episode and power through it and then really really dig in,” says Bennett. “And yeah, it was just over. I was obsessed.”

Bennett’s fascination with the show is one echoed by millions of fans. She’s grown to love just how unique and peculiar the show is, appreciating the vibes and aesthetic of the show, as well as the intrigue and mystery. 

Much of the aesthetic and dream-like nature of “Twin Peaks” can be seen in Lynch’s earlier work, specifically in his 1986 film “Blue Velvet,” which also stars MacLachlan as well as future “The Return” star Laura Dern. Setting the film in a logging town, mysterious clubs and femme fatales, similar mysteries at the center all show threads connecting the ‘80s film to the ‘90s show. 

“I love that, especially for the time it came out, it’s not one genre,” says Bennett. She explains how every show on at the time kind of fit into a certain box. There were crime shows like “Homicide: Life on The Street,” sci-fi shows like “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” comedies like “Seinfeld” and procedural dramas like “Law & Order,” but there was nothing quite like “Twin Peaks.” 

“I think part of why ‘Twin Peaks’ was so popular and why it has remained so influential is because it was not one thing,” says Bennett. “It’s murder mystery, small town drama, teen romance, supernatural, there's comedy to it, there’s violence… The other thing I love about it is it’s so timeless in the way it’s made and the time it came out. It could be the 1950s, it could be the 70s, it could be the 90s. The way the styling is done, the clothes, the dialogue, the sets, it’s so timeless and iconic.”

History of Twede’s

Built in 1940 and opened in 1941, the building which currently houses Twede’s Cafe has been a staple of Snoqualmie, central Washington and North Bend for over 80 years. Initially called Thompson’s Cafe, and owned by Roy Thompson, it moved into the current building that stands just in front of the mountain-line today. A few years later during World War II, Roy’s son Cecil took over Thompson’s when his father went to war. Shortly after, he followed suit, giving control of the cafe to his wife. 

Within the next decade, Thompson’s was bought by business partners Frank Marcile and Don Tift and renamed the Mar-T Cafe, “Mar” representing Marcile, and “T” Tift. The giant neon Mar-T sign still looms over the cafe to this day. 

Eventually the owners decided that it was time to part ways, leaving it up to the chance of a coin-flip to determine who would maintain control of the Mar-T. Marcille won, then handing over control to Pat Cokewell who managed the cafe until its sale in 1997 to Kyle Twede. 

Twede (pronounced tweetie) bought the diner in 1997 and promptly renamed it Twede’s Cafe (pronounced tw-eed). In 2000, an arson attack left the interior of the diner completely destroyed, although the sign and exterior remained unharmed. Twede’s was rebuilt – but not restored. The innards now looked nothing like the original look seen in “Twin Peaks” despite maintaining a classic 50’s vibe.

Until 2015, when Lynch and his team began production on “Twin Peaks: The Return.” Lynch and his crew used Showtime’s dollar to completely restore the look of the original Double-R diner seen in the show, transforming the inside of the cafe to it’s classical americana look Agent Cooper had seemingly endless slices of pie in.

And then, enter Rachel Bennett and Max Spears.

Rachel and Max

“I feel like it’s always changing,” Bennett, current co-owner of Twede’s Cafe says about her favorite item on the menu. “The obligatory thing for me to say is the cherry pie and the coffee. I do drink so much of our coffee.”

Bennett says that she used to eat a lot of the diner’s famous cherry pie, but has not been able to eat cherry pie since participating in a cherry pie eating contest at the North Bend Festival. “I did not win.” Bennett says. “But I had fun, and I was sick afterwards.” 

Bennett’s favorite item on the menu is the Mexican skillet plate, and an Oreo milkshake for dessert. 

“My first job was actually at a different ‘Twin Peaks’ diner. It was called the Fall City Grill, the building actually just got torn down a few months ago,” Bennett says. “But it was Hap’s Diner in ‘Fire Walk With Me,’ the one where Chris Isaac and Kiefer Sutherland go in and talk to the waitress and she’s got a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.”

Owning one of the most iconic diners in Washington State was not something either Bennett or Spears had anticipated out of their lives. Spears graduated with a PhD in Philosophy, and Bennett graduated from grad-school to be a midwife. Bennett worked for a few years post-graduation in her desired field struggling to make ends meet. This led her to picking up shifts at Twede’s for some extra change in her pocket. “We were living in North Bend a year out from getting married, and I needed some extra income,” Bennett says. “We were also watching ‘Twin Peaks’ at the time, so I applied at Twede’s just to see what would happen.” 

Bennett ended up being hired as server for one night a week, on the slowest shift of the week, a minimal position that would lead to something so much more. On her first ever shift, Bennett spoke with Kyle Twede and received news that would ultimately change her life forever. 

“I really hit it off with the previous owner, and he told me on I think the first day that I worked there that he was trying to sell the diner, but wasn’t really advertising it,” Bennett says. “[He] wanted to make sure it was the right fit. Didn’t want some investor to come along and really change it.”

Bennett didn’t make much of the comment at the time, seeing it as an off-hand remark made by an owner looking to stew conversation with a new employee. “Then, after a few months of working here, I was also watching ‘Twin Peaks’ a lot, and just became kind of obsessed with the idea of my now husband and I trying to buy it,” says Bennett. “I just had all these thoughts and ideas of ways that it could be improved or modernized and the ‘Twin Peaks’ experience could be leaned into a little bit more.” Bennett raised the idea to her husband, planning to brush it off as a joke if he didn’t reciprocate her enthusiasm, but to her excitement, Spears was equally intrigued at the prospect. 

After that, everything snowballed. The couple got their small business loan, signed the papers and on March 1, 2020 Bennett and Spears were the proud owners of Twede’s Cafe. Unfortunately, their ownership did not start as good as their cherry pie.

Turmoil through COVID

Exactly two weeks after their purchase of Twede’s was finalized, Rachel and Max were told that they would have to shut down the cafe for the foreseeable future in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was pretty terrifying,” says Bennett. “We just had to make it work. There was no other option. We just put all of our money and future into buying this place. Failure wasn’t even something we considered.”

The couple took this mentality and hit the ground running. After securing a PPP loan from their bank, the two were able to keep on their core staff of 30 people and work throughout the lockdowns doing renovation projects like cleaning, decorating and painting as well as soliciting takeout orders. Bennett and Spears also created a GoFundMe to help pay their staff, which got shared by MacLachlan on social media and Bennett said was very helpful. 

After a few months, the diner was able to open back up to 25% capacity in early June. Customers were spaced out across tables, masked up and ready to eat pie. A few months later they expanded to 50% capacity. Bring out the coffee. Then, Thanksgiving rolled around and thanks to a surge in cases caused by holiday traveling, the diner had to close once more. Eventually, the restaurant opened back up to full capacity in early 2021. Since then, business hasn’t slowed down. “We just keep getting busier and busier,” says Bennett. “It’s really grown a lot out here in terms of population, and I also just think the diner itself has gained a lot of popularity in the last few years. 

In a funny way, Bennett believes that they have the pandemic partially to thank for their non-stop business. “I think during the pandemic, the ‘Twin Peaks’ fandom grew quite a bit, just because people were doing so much streaming,” says Bennett. “There’s a lot of new fans because of that period of time, and we’ve really tried to do a lot to embrace the ‘Twin Peaks’ fandom.

Re-igniting the Double-R

When the “Twin Peaks” team came back in the day to film at Twede’s, they’d install their Double-R neon sign atop the diner’s marquee. But, when production would leave, so would the sign. And once the series faced cancellation after its second season, the sign became long-lost to the North Bend community. It returned briefly during the production of “The Return,” before being taken down once again.

Although always on the mind of Bennett and Spears, getting their own Double-R sign was just never truly in the cards. “With all of the turmoil of the first couple years… big projects like that are just hard to squeeze into the budget,” says Bennett. “We prioritize taking care of our employees above anything else and making sure that they are working enough, so it’s really hard to justify big projects like that.” 

Last summer, Bennett and Spears were approached by a few hardcore “Twin Peaks” fans about installing their own, for good. The fans brought the idea to the table, telling Bennett and Spears that if they were open to doing it, they didn’t think that the couple would need to pay for it either. 

“‘We think that there’s enough people that this is important too that we could make this a fan-funded project,” says Bennett, describing the hook of the fans’ proposal. Bennett and Spears took the idea and hit the ground running, putting up a kickstarter campaign that completely funded the project in less than two days, and over doubled their goal by the time that it was over. 

The actual lighting ceremony was just as special as the sign itself. Fans gathered and filled the parking lot of the diner, packing the house for what was a special night for everybody there. “Since we doubled our goal, we were able to put on this really cool event… we had our ‘Twin Peaks’ themed dream-pop band that always comes and plays for ‘Twin Peaks’ day.”

In a special moment for the locals, previous owner of the diner when it was the Mar-T, Pat Cokewell was also in attendance. “She still lives locally, I see her every now and again,” says Bennett. “We invited her to come to the neon sign lighting ceremony and gave her a guest of honor seat in the front of the crowd.” Andrea Hays, who plays waitress Heidi in the show was also at the lighting as Bennett and Spears were able to get her a car service from her home in Seattle to Twede’s.

Fans at the event were also greeted via video message by Agent Cooper himself, Kyle MacLachlan. “It was so special,” says Bennett about the event. “The whole thing was amazing… that was one of the coolest things I’ve been to.”

SEPARATE STORY BOX:

Twin Peaks Day - Feb. 24

“Diane, it’s 11:30 a.m., February 24th, entering the town of Twin Peaks…” – Agent Cooper in the pilot episode of “Twin Peaks”

Every year on Feb. 24, fans across the world celebrate “Twin Peaks” day, and naturally find themselves flocking to Twede’s. Celebrated on that day because of Agent Cooper’s in-show arrival to the town of Twin Peaks on the same day, Bennett says that fans show up in costume as their favorite characters ready to celebrate their favorite show and eat where Agent Cooper and Audrey Horne once sat. 

“Twin Peaks” day actually provides the diner a boost in what is otherwise the slowest time of the year for Rachel Bennett and Twede’s diner. After the holiday rush in November and December, business slows throughout January and February before picking back up again in March and going full-throttle into the summer. 

“It’s actually so nice to have this bump a few weeks into February… If ‘Twin Peaks’ day wasn’t a thing, it would be pretty dead,” says Bennett. “We usually do special events… but I’ve kind of realized we don’t really need to, it’s extra for us. No matter what, we’re going to be slammed from start to finish.”

As much as the holiday is great for the business, at the end of the day, it’s about the fans. The people who keep “Twin Peaks” in the zeitgeist, the people who come to Twede’s year-in-year-out. “I’ve had multiple people walk in the front door and just cry because they’re just so happy to be able to step into the world that means so much to them.”