Washington still lacks a giant beaver-themed travel center, despite persistent questions about what it would take for Buc-ee’s to finally open in the state. Fortunately, local restaurants already provide plenty of stranger experiences.
Customers can eat inside a fictional television diner, visit a 14th-century village or attempt to finish a 12-egg omelet.
Bizzarro Italian Cafe in Seattle
Bizzarro is an appropriate name for a restaurant filled with skeletons, mannequin parts, chandeliers, bicycles and a model airplane that appears to be crashing into the dining room.
Visual artist David Nast opened the restaurant inside a former auto workshop in 1986. The space has continued evolving into a densely packed collection of paintings, antiques and peculiar objects.
Almost every section of the walls and ceiling contains something worth examining.
The food is considerably more serious than the décor. Bizzarro serves handmade pasta and hearty Italian dishes in a room resembling the combined contents of an art studio, antique store and strange uncle’s attic.
Unicorn in Seattle
Unicorn brings the carnival indoors—and adds alcohol.
The Capitol Hill bar covers its walls with bright colors, animal heads, circus imagery and other intentionally over-the-top decorations. A photo booth, arcade games and claw machine add to the midway atmosphere.
The food stays on theme with corn dogs, funnel cake, churros and foot-long hot dogs. Colorful cocktails can arrive in enormous “Unicorn Helmets” designed for sharing.
Unicorn is a nightlife destination rather than a family restaurant, and guests must be at least 21.
It feels like a county fair redesigned by someone who had too much sugar and decided the atmosphere still needed more glitter.
Twede’s Cafe in North Bend
Twede’s Cafe is a real restaurant pretending to be a fictional restaurant that has become more famous than the original.
The North Bend diner appeared as the Double R Diner in “Twin Peaks.” Fans continue arriving from around the world to order Agent Dale Cooper’s preferred combination: cherry pie and a “damn fine cup of coffee.”
Photographs and memorabilia cover the walls, while the surrounding mountains make the location feel as atmospheric as it did on television.
Twede’s still operates as a conventional diner serving breakfast, burgers and desserts. However, many customers are less interested in an ordinary meal than stepping briefly into David Lynch’s mysterious fictional town.
Bors Hede Inne at Camlann Medieval Village
Bors Hede Inne does more than decorate a dining room with plastic swords.
The restaurant operates inside Camlann Medieval Village, a living-history museum in Carnation designed to represent rural England in 1376.
Meals draw from medieval recipes and are accompanied by music and storytelling. Special feasts celebrate seasonal holidays with multiple courses adapted from historical cookbooks.
The surrounding village includes costumed interpreters, craftspeople and period buildings. Guests therefore do not merely eat medieval-inspired food. They temporarily enter an interpretation of medieval daily life.
Reservations are important, particularly for monthly feasts that frequently sell out.
Beth’s Cafe in Seattle
Beth’s Cafe believes six eggs are a reasonable starting point for an omelet.
The longtime Aurora Avenue diner is nationally known for omelets made with six or 12 eggs. The largest versions arrive on pizza-sized trays with substantial portions of hash browns and toast.
The “Triple Bypass” adds bacon, sausage, ham and two cheeses, creating the kind of breakfast that should probably require a signed waiver.
Beth’s walls are covered with drawings created by customers, giving the dining room the appearance of an enormous, constantly changing notebook.
Seattle has more fashionable breakfast restaurants. Very few will serve one person a dozen eggs beneath thousands of hand-drawn cartoons.
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