Mar T Keeps Pie But Changes Owners

NORTH BEND

The wooden booths inside the Mar T Cafe are as hard as ever, and the small tables facing North Bend Boulevard offer the same view of people walking by and logging trucks hissing to a stop at a traffic signal.

Not much of that is expected to change when a new owner takes over the 57-year-old restaurant next Tuesday. Pat Cokewell, owner of the eatery made famous seven years ago by the now-defunct TV series "Twin Peaks," has sold out and will devote her time to a growing catering business.

Yes, the new owner, Kyle Twede, will continue serving Mar T cherry pie and the cuppa joe that became household words when the series was filmed in and around North Bend and the Snoqualmie Valley.

The big sign, with the large T and the word "Mar" framed in an oval, will change slightly. The T will stay, but the oval will display the cafe's new name: Twede's.

Thus ends the saga of the Mar T Cafe, started in 1952 after Frank Marsolais and Don Tift - Mar and T - bought Thompson's Cafe, which opened in 1940.

Cokewell, who hails from North Carolina, worked at the Mar T for five years before she bought it 21 years ago.

"At the time, I never dreamed I would own it someday," she said, adding that she raised two daughters during her years there.

Business was good for years, slowed when Interstate 90 bypassed downtown North Bend in the late 1970s, but resurged when the "Twin Peaks" craze hit town.

Part of the series' plot featured FBI Agent Dale Cooper's craving for cherry pie from the Double-R Diner, in real life the Mar T.

Although the quirky show was short-lived, its followers still drop by, especially from countries where the series is in reruns. Last week a family from Germany stopped in for pie and coffee. Two months ago, after Cokewell did a radio interview with a station in Denmark, several Danes showed up.

Twede cooked for 10 years at the Mar T and eight years at the Bellevue Athletic Club, and for several years managed a training restaurant in Renton for Pietro's Pizza.

"I've waited 10 years to buy the place. Now it's come true," he said.

He acknowledges the Mar T's reputation as the "Twin Peaks" restaurant, but he plans to capitalize on it as a 1950s "period piece . . . like the old days, a place where people want to congregate."

His renovation plans call for a soda fountain, with a large curved counter and stools, black-and-white floor tiles, a jukebox and lots of neon. A revamped menu will feature 14 types of hamburgers.

A wall plaque will display the building's history and its changes over the years. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Farewell to Mar T owner

Mar T Cafe owner Pat Cokewell will throw a party at the restaurant from 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday for people who want to bid farewell.