You can't ask for meat at The Black Lodge, but there's plenty of cherry pie.
That's just one of many items you'll find at this small Vancouver eatery on Kingsway near Fraser Street, where two young entrepreneurs have opened a "Twin Peaks"-themed vegetarian restaurant in a neighbourhood thriving with small businesses.
Co-owners Claire Wyrostok and Matt Krysko didn't mean to fashion a restaurant after David Lynch's cult TV show. They were tossing around names for a "cabin-themed" restaurant with Pacific Northwest aesthetic when Wyrostok blurted out "The Black Lodge," the otherworldly setting for the show's finale.
The Black Lodge is the first restaurant venture for Wyrostok, a former Downtown Eastside youth worker, and Krysko, a bassist with Vancouver band Capitol 6. The cozy, intimate space is the latest addition to a neighbourhood Wyrostok describes as a "dead zone."
"When Matt and I decided to open, we actually just wanted to make a nice place for our friends to come to," she told The Huffington Post B.C.
"It just so happens that our friends are just the weird kind of people who also like 'Twin Peaks.'"
Despite it being a top-rated show during in the early '90s, the short-run American drama series was cancelled in June 1991 due to low ratings. Since then, it has gained new life, picking up a surprise cult following.
The Black Lodge owners, Claire Wyrostok and Matt Krysko
Like the show, the space is eerie and intimate. The smiling face of murdered teen Laura Palmer stares out on a cabin-like dining area. A bar and tree slice tables provide seating for 24 people.
Over the bar, the owners have installed a cabin frame that was built using logs from Spanish Banks beach. Pennants hang from its stumps, and on the bar's shelves you'll find wood-carved owls and pamphlets from provincial parks.
The atmosphere turns creepy when you walk to the back, where a bathroom has been decorated to look like the Red Room, where character FBI agent Dale Cooper confronted backwards-talking spirits. The bathroom has red floor-to-ceiling drapery and a black-and-white zigzag pattern on the floor.
The creepiest part? When you step out of the Red Room, the first thing you see is a wanted poster for BOB, the malevolent spirit that tormented the show's characters.
Check out pictures of The Black Lodge. The story continues after the slideshow:
The Black Lodge, 'Twin Peaks'-Themed Restaurant
The menu offers a vegetarian twist on campfire classics. Appetizers include the Campfire Dog, a six-inch Torfurkey brat, and Suzie's Starry Night Chili, packed with chunky veggies and black beans.
For mains there's the Log Dog, a smokie stuffed with avocado, cream cheese, tortilla chips, jalapenos and salsa, and comes with a side of fries or house root salad. You can also get the B.A.L.T./Tree Hugger sandwich, a veggie coconut bacon, avocado, sprouts, cheese, tomato sandwich on sourdough.
Dessert choices include gluten free s'mores and, of course, the cherry pie, a fixture on the TV show.
Thirsty? There's the Dr. Jacoby, a Hawaiian-themed cocktail with coconut rum, banana liquor and pineapple juice named after the show's eccentric psychiatrist.
"People always come up to us and say, we've been waiting for something to open for so long and it's really great to have something here," Krysko said.
Wyrostok sees their business as a part of a changing Fraser Street community. She says people are moving there because they can't afford to live on Commercial Drive or Main Street, areas that she said are becoming gentrified quickly.
"There's starting to be wonderful, independent, community-owned small businesses up that way," she said of Fraser.
The Black Lodge isn't the first time that "Twin Peaks" has inspired a restaurant. Portland's Doug Fir Lounge describes itself as "an ideal somewhere between 'Twin Peaks' and a chic cosmopolitan truck stop," while Atlanta's Book House Pub offers drinks named after the show's characters.
Lynch himself designed Silencio, a Paris nightclub named after his film "Mulholland Drive," The Guardian reported.