“Norma, I’ll see you in my dreams” – Six Days as a Busboy in the Real Twin Peaks

It had been forty years since I had had a first day at a restaurant. In 1986, my mother dropped me off at Arby’s and said she would be back to pick me up in three hours. In 2026, I was walking to Twede’s Cafe, with mountain ranges to my left and right, as I began a six-day stint as a busboy. I had flown from Florida to Seattle, rented an AirBnB within walking distance, and spent more money than I could ever make at a service provider job. Why? Because I was going to get a chance to actually step inside my television screen and work at the actual restaurant that filled in as the Double R Diner in Twin Peaks, the 1990 cult-classic series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch.

“NORMA, I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS”

Only a few minutes into the Pilot episode of Twin Peaks, a series that changed network television for ever, Bobby Briggs, played by newcomer actor Dana Ashbrook, popped a quarter into the jukebox and told Norma Jennings, played by veteran actor Peggy Lipton (Mod Squad and mother of Rashida Jones from Parks and Rec) and says, “Norma, I’ll see you in my dreams.”

Without a beat, Norma, the owner of the fictional Double R Diner, responds, “Not if I see you first.”

When I watched this scene in 1990, I would never have dared to even dream that I would get a chance to work at such a place. I guess dreams can come true.

TWEDE’S CAFE, THE REAL DOUBLE R DINER IN NORTH BEND, WASHINGTON

In real life, the actual diner is owned by Rachel Bennett and Max Spears. They purchased Twede’s Cafe just before COVID, and have embraced Twin Peaks and its fandom with open arms since the beginning.

They have let Lynch-tribute bands perform there, allowed fans to paint murals, encouraged patrons to grab a photo op at Norma’s booth, sold fan made merchandise (including my books and The Blue Rose magazine), and, insanely, let fans start a Kickstarter campaign to purchase a neon “RR” sign and affixed it to their actual sign so the signage looks exactly as it did in the series. My point is that they are very open to fan requests, but I had a request that no one had ever thought to ask for.

I wanted to work there.

Not for pretend, but for real. I wanted to pour coffee, serve cherry pie, bus tables, seat guests, and be on the lookout for suspects in the “Who killed Laura Palmer?” case.

At first, Rachel was more than skeptical. Could you blame her? I was asking to work during the annual Real Twin Peaks weekend, which coincides with what is known as Twin Peaks Day. For those few who aren’t chronically obsessed with a show that ran for only 29 episodes back in the early nineties, I will explain Twin Peaks Day to you.

WHAT IS TWIN PEAKS DAY IN THE REAL TWIN PEAKS?

On February 24, the homecoming queen, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), was murdered. She also worked at the Double R Diner. Although I didn’t see her food handling license hung up on the office wall. (Don’t worry, mine is there. I did have to apply for the license and pass the test.)  Later that morning, Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) drove into the town of Twin Peaks to solve her murder.

Now, thirty-six years later, fans of the series invade the two neighboring towns where the pilot, feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and reboot series, Twin Peaks: The Return, were filmed.

Welcome to Snoqualmie and North Bend, where the mayors themselves stand on the very spot where Agent Cooper drove into town, and proclaim it Twin Peaks Day.

People from around the world travel to the area for the weekend to attend panels, answer trivia questions, dance to Angelo Badalamenti’s music at a karaoke dance party, and get autographs from people who worked on the series.

This year’s special guest was Twin Peaks series-writer Harley Peyton, whom John Thorne and I interviewed in front of around 300 fans at the historic North Bend Theatre.

Since the show first aired in April 1990, thousands upon thousands of people have made the trek to the Pacific Northwest to attend this celebration of Snoqualmie Valley, or the now-defunct fan-run Twin Peaks Festival.

But in all that time, only one nut job flew across the country to remove half-eaten omelettes, slice fresh-baked cherry pies into sixths, balance cups of black coffee, and stand on his feet for six hours a day for six straight days. That nut job would be me: Scott Ryan, author of five David Lynch-based books, owner of a publishing company, podcast host, and way too old to be working on his feet for a week.

WORKING AT TWEDE’S CAFE

It was early on in my first shift when I noticed that my co-bussers were all around 18. Regan, Emma, Mateo, Rosa, Ayanna, and Lily were running around like it was no big deal. Sometimes I could add up their ages, and it wouldn’t have equaled mine.

From them I learned how to take a .5 picture, how it is wrong to take a selfie from below—you raise the camera up so you don’t get chin shadows—and I learned about Labubu dolls.

When I didn’t know what these things were, they looked at me like I had driven up on a horse and buggy, or even worse, like I had an iPhone 9.

Although their mockery stopped the first time someone came in carrying one of my Always Music in the Air books and asked me for a signature and a selfie. (Yes, I held the camera up high.) They couldn’t believe that customers knew who I was. Mateo asked, “Are you like some celebrity hire?”

Hardly, celebrities get coffee, they don’t bring it, but it made me feel a little cooler.

It was our job to help the waiters never need for anything. Jacob, Ari, Lindsay, and Anita wanted those patrons to be happy with coffee and water at all times. They want us bussing those tables as soon as possible so that the turn around was quick and the tips kept flowing.

I am pretty darn proud of how I could keep up with every one of those TiK-ToK/Tic-Tac generation kids. I brewed the coffee before the second pot was low. I was pre-filling water cups to prepare for the next patron. I rolled the silverware into a tight napkin burrito with the best of them. (That one is actually a lie. They all laughed at how I rolled silverware and how I put whipped cream on milkshakes.)

Rachel was duly impressed and admitted she was a little unsure if I was actually going to do the dirty work, or just try to sell my Twin Peaks books to every customer. (I did end up selling a good amount of them, but I never pushed them. I was too busy to Glen Gary or Glen Ross any patron.) In fact, all the Twin Peaks fans who knew of me, kept expressing their genuine surprise at how well I did.

I started to wonder, “How low was the bar of what people thought I could do?” I mean, isn’t that kind of insulting? “What? Scott Ryan can pour liquid from one container to a smaller one? Who knew! He can carry a plate from the front to the back? Wow, Bob, Wow!”

TWEDE’S CAFE IS MORE THAN JUST CHERRY PIE AND COFFEE

The tasks were fine and fun, but the thing that will stick with me forever was the human connection. I never got sick of seeing a fan’s face as they walked into the diner for the first time in their life. There truly isn’t another series or movie where you can actually step into the place where the characters ate and worked, and actually eat and work there.

You can go to the exterior of places, like with the Cheers bar, or the Friends apartment, but this diner is literally where Norma, Shelly, Heidi and Laura actually worked. They filmed the pilot, the movie, and The Return, not in a Double R Diner set, but in this exact building (some of the Double R Diner scenes from the first two seasons were shot on a set in Van Nuys, California).

So when a fan walks in, they aren’t just walking into Twede’s Cafe, they are walking into the Double R, and into Twin Peaks. I loved witnessing that and talking with that person.

I saw a couple holding hands across the booth and heard them whisper how much they loved the other one for taking this journey to the mecca of cult TV. They were so in love and so moved by their moment that they never saw me remove their demolished plate of cherry pie and ice cream.

I saw a young college girl writing on napkin, after napkin. When she finally needed coffee, I asked her what she was working on. She said she was a fiction writer and had been stuck with writer’s block for weeks, but being at the diner inspired her. She said she couldn’t wait to get home to start writing and had forgotten her notebook. She started scribbling on a napkin, and then another one. Her block was gone. I told her to send me her finished product, and maybe I could publish it for her.

I met a producer from a major television series that has run for decades. We talked Lynch films and set up a dinner once I get back to Florida to discuss a possible documentary from one of the books I wrote. He said he was interested because “like-minded Lynch folks had to stick together.”

I saw a couple dressed as owls, who just wanted hot tea. When they sat down, I said, “The owls are not what they seem.” I was hoping they would hoot like Leland Palmer, but they just nodded. So wise.

I met three separate young ladies dressed as Shelly the waitress, played by Mädchen Amick. The first one I saw, I asked if she wanted to go behind the counter and take a picture with her holding the coffee pot, and she said yes. This was the only time I got admonished. Rachel gave me a forced smile and said, “It’s kind of busy for photo ops behind the counter.”

That didn’t stop me from allowing the other two girls I saw over the next few days to do the same thing. I mean, if you dress like Shelly, you really should get special treatment. Maybe it will hurt my chances for getting rehired next year, but it was all worth it to see their smiling faces.

WAIT A MINUTE, HE’S A BUSBOY?

Probably the funniest thing that happened was that after I interviewed Twin Peaks writer Harley Peyton live on stage, (Did I mention that series creator Mark Frost called into the panel live to loud cheers from the audience?) I had to rush over to the diner to work my 2:00-to-close shift. On my way out the door, someone introduced me to a man who has over fifty never-before-seen pictures of David Lynch directing the Pilot.

The man wanted to write a book, and someone connected us. The man, who has never published before, was rightly worried about signing with just anyone. I pitched my company, told him my resume, and assured him that we were the right company for his book.

Two hours later, I set a cup of coffee down on the counter for a new customer, and lo and behold, it was this man. He looked up at me and saw me, in my ketchup and coffee-stained white apron, adorned with Twin Peaks buttons and pins, as I dropped off menus, silverware, and drinks for him.

I have seen the face of disappointment many times in my life. I recognize it well. You know he had previously called his wife and told her, “I found a publisher. We are gonna get these photos out there and make some money!” Then only a few hours later, he sees me schlepping milkshakes, and his bubble bursts. “A busboy! The guy is just a busboy. He isn’t a publisher at all.”

I didn’t explain the situation. How could I explain what I was doing? Why would anyone do this?

“EVERY CONVERSATION I JOINED WAS FILLED WITH CONNECTION, LOVE, AND GOODWILL”

To answer that question, we have to look at the world of business today. In my real job, I fight Amazon, Apple, Ingram, Barnes & Noble, the internet, bots, AI, Google, and Facebook every single day. I never interact with human beings. It is always a bot. Always an algorithm, and none of it works. None of my actions produce results. Never does the digital ball bounce my way. That is the life of a small-business owner and a small-time writer who covers television that is all but forgotten.

Since I was only working six days, Rachel decided not to train me on the register, so I never did anything with a computer. Every task I attempted, I completed it with my hands, with my personality, or with my heart.

Everything I did was human. I was a human, having human interactions with other humans. They were hungry; I brought them food. They were thirsty; I brought them drinks. They were lonely; I listened to their stories.

Every task I attempted was a success because I wasn’t relying on technology to accomplish it. No Bluetooth to connect, no six-digit pass code that expired, no computer to restart to fix the problem. Every conversation I joined was filled with connection, love, and goodwill.

Not everyone who came into the diner was a Twin Peaks fan. In fact, one young girl told me she just got in her car that morning and drove north to find snow. She pulled into the parking lot, saw a lady walking around with a log in her arms, and thought she’d stop in. She said the place had such good energy, but she couldn’t explain why. I told her to go home and watch the Pilot of Twin Peaks, and it would all make sense. (Well, you know what I mean.) I like to think that next year I will see her at the Real Twin Peaks event, and she will be quoting Cooper, dancing like Audrey, and carrying her own log.

So I said goodbye to all my young coworkers, my new customers, and my skills as a balancer of dirty dishes. I return to my life as a writer, a publisher, and a person who has little human interaction, and a ton of digital fights with digital bots that don’t exist. The world we live in is nowhere near as rewarding as the world that Mark Frost and David Lynch created in Twin Peaks. A series set in 1989 that had the simplicity of the past. No computers. No internet. Nothing stopping us from connecting. It is all humanity. All love. All pie and coffee. Just like the world that Rachel and Max have created at their Twede’s Cafe.

And for six days, I lived inside their dream. Can you blame me for not wanting to wake up?