Du-par’s: Why This LA Diner Just Won’t Die

For 64 years, the Du-par's in Studio City never closed. Five years after a small fire finally locked its doors for a day, it closed for good, and the room where Twin Peaks was dreamed up became a Sephora. Du-par's started in 1938 as a little counter at the Original Farmers Market, Third and Fairfax, and grew to nine restaurants around Los Angeles. In this video we follow it from the hitching post in Thousand Oaks to the son of a rival coffee shop family who bought it in 2004, took it all the way to Las Vegas and Maryland, and watched almost every new location close. Then a former server named Frances Tario bought the company, and kept the original open through 2020 and a hard 2025. And through every owner, one thing stayed put: the hotcake recipe in the safe by the front door. If you grew up going to Du-par's, tell us what you ordered. Watch next: Why Did Howard Johnson's Vanish?    • Why Did Howard Johnson's Vanish?   Subscribe for more of the brands that raised a generation:    / @yesterdaysbrands   Sources Los Angeles Business Journal, "Dupar" (1998) Larchmont Chronicle, Du-par's 75th anniversary (2013) ABC7 Los Angeles (2013, 2017) Patch Studio City (2012); Patch Los Angeles (2020) Thousand Oaks Acorn (2009) FOX 11 Los Angeles (2017) Mark Evanier, News From ME (2017) Twin Peaks Blog (2024), quoting Lynch on Lynch and Mark Frost L.A. Weekly, "The New Du-par's: Over Easy" WTOP (2013) Las Vegas Sun (2010, 2017); Las Vegas Review-Journal (2025) Beverly Press (2018) CBS Los Angeles (2020) KTLA (2025); L.A. in a Minute (2025) History.com, Twin Peaks premiere (1990) dupars.net (October 2026)