A few weeks after we had booked and planned our trip to London something wonderful happened. I came across a news bit that said entertainment companies Lemonade and Laughing Gas and Blanch & Shock were hosting a secret pop up dining event called “The Owls Are Not What They Seem“ inspired by David Lynch’s cult TV show Twin Peaks. The wonderful part? The Twin Peaks Inspired Popup in London was happening the same exact time that my two Twin Peaks-loving best friends and I were going to be in town.

Once I had finished reviving myself from my fan-girl faint, I immediately notified two people of the excitement – our London host Will (who also happened to be a Twin Peaks fan) and the very generous Jason who had little to no knowledge of the show. He was very kind to agree to the event although I think he feared I would go into cardiac arrest if he had refused.

POST DISCLAIMER – If you’re not familiar with Twin Peaks then a lot of the photos/details in this post may not make a ton of sense but are still worth checking out. As an outsider to the series, Jason knew nothing about the show going into the event but still had a blast.

Fast forward to our trip – here is the big day. The group of us met at the secret meeting place that I was informed of via email earlier in the day (seriously, how fucking cool is that? I felt very hip/privileged.) Finally, the unmarked door on the street opened and we were led down a dark stairwell.

After geeking out pretty hard, we met some of the “cast of characters” and were assigned specific roles for the rest of the evening. You see, a young town beauty had died and we were all suspects. All of us had brief backstories and actions to perform over the course of dinner. On our way to our table we picked up our first cup of coffee.

From our table at the diner, you could already see the main areas of the event but there was still plenty more to come.

We carefully read through our character backstories.

The waitress and menu arrived with a detailing of what to expect for the evening.

Our kind server let us know that we could get up and explore any area we wanted to while we were in between meal courses. Will wasted no time checking in with the Doctor.

The log lady seemed to make quite an impression on the diner patrons.

The “donuts” are ready.

After the food starter, a quick trip to the bathroom revealed even more madness.

Sometime before dinner our group was asked to have a small service for the deceased. What happened in this room stays in this room.

Our Breakfast for Dinner had arrived in between seances & cocktails. (Apologies for the blurry pic)

After dinner we went back to exploring and checked out all the creepy rooms searching for clues and oddities.

In one of the rooms I was cornered and asked to return to my table for some cherry pie.

After dessert, We were all corralled into another room so we could be debriefed by the top Agent investigating the scene.

From here they made all of the guests wear a mask, split up the groups and guided us through various secret stairwells.

We eventually met back up with each other and were instructed to do a little more exploring of the area.

It was apparent in the library that someone was developing a costume to become Rob’s doppelganger.

Some rooms were completely empty save for a small TV and a couple video tapes…

WRAPPED IN PLASTIC

After creeping through the darker parts of the exhibit we were again led into another space – a basement bar with a very different movie connection.

Then the show began…

It didn’t take long after the performance ended to find The Black Lodge hallway. There were a lot of secrets hiding in here.

At the end of the night, everyone was full of food, drinks and stories. This was one of the coolest experiences of my life – as a fan of the show and just a fan of creative events this was the ultimate. The only thing that would have made the night better is if we were able to spend a few more hours there.

Here’s a great promo video highlighting some of the fun at The Owls Are Not What They Seem from The Owls on Vimeo.