Twede's Diner in North Bend, WA has been open since the '40s, having changed names a few times over the years, but it's best known for playing the Double R Diner in David Lynch's iconic TV-series Twin Peaks. Local resident Rachel Bennet and her husband, Max Spears bought Twede's and completed the purchase on February 29 of this year, which was just two weeks before COVID-19 shut everything down in Washington state.
Bennet and Spears offered takeout but were barely making enough to cover food costs, until they secured a $100,000 PPP loan. “That was huge for us, in that we didn’t have to think about our sales for two months, which was most of when we were takeout only," Bennet told Grub Street. "It allowed us to pay everybody as if we were open for regular hours. The sales we were doing were just paying for the food we were buying and nothing else. We keep saying to ourselves how lucky we are that this is the restaurant that we bought because there are so many people who care about it, want to see it continue, and have embraced us as owners."