David Lynch's Memorial at Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, California

On January 14, 2025 I went to Bob's Big Boy on Riverside Drive in Burbank, California. I'd recently moved back to California from Washington, D.C. and Bob's was one of my first stops. Bob's has always been one of my favorite places in the world - the diner against which I measure all other diners. I've been going my entire life, and my mom her entire life before me. She loves to reminisce about her dad bringing her to Bob's in the late 50s every Saturday morning to have a father/daughter breakfast date. My recollections are of lunches with her and my grandma, of family gatherings big and small, and most recently of David Lynch.

The first book I read in 2025 was Catching the Big Fish about Lynch's creative expression and experience with Transcendental Meditation. In the book, he talks about his affinity for Bob's and how nearly every day in the 1980s he'd go there at lunchtime to people watch and write. While I sat at the counter on the 14th, listening to the sounds of Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness" intermingle with the clang of dishes, conversations, and orders being called up, a young kid ran up to the front of the restaurant where celebrity portraits line the walls. He pointed up and exclaimed, "It's David Lynch!" I'd been recording a voice memo because the moment was so perfect, so Lynchian, and I actually caught his words. It was truly magical.

Two days later the news broke that David Lynch had passed away at the age of 78.

I went back to Bob's when I heard about the memorial rising up in his memory, determined to capture it on film. These were shot on my Minolta X-700 using Kodak UltraMax 400. Press play and browse the images below. Click on each one to tile it in the background. If you're interested in purchasing any prints or digital copies, please feel free to send me a message in my guestbook or on Instagram.