Dining with the dead brings good luck for restaurateur

Published Mar 25, 2014

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Some restaurant atmospheres can really be dead – but one Indian owner claims business has flourished since opening his eaterie at the site of an old cemetery.

Rather than ripping out the graves to make way for his restaurant, owner Krishnan Kutti chose to preserve the coffins and place tables around them at the ironically-named New Lucky Restaurant in Ahmedabad.

The coffins are the remnants of a Muslim cemetery and the cafe has become a popular hang-out for young and old.

Kutti said: “The graveyard brings good luck. Our business has been flourishing because of these graves. It gives people a unique experience. We’ve maintained the graves as they were. Our customers don’t mind.”

Kutti has little idea who the graves belong to, while some locals claim they contain the remains of followers of a 16th-century Sufi saint, whose tomb lies nearby.

Around a dozen graves lie inside the restaurant and have been sealed off by iron grilles.

Every morning, when the shutters of the restaurant are pulled up, waiters spend some time wiping the gravestones and decorating them with fresh flowers.

“We begin our day by paying respects to the graves,” says Kutti. “We wipe them and cover them with cloth and also shower flowers on them. It is important to respect the dead.” – Daily Mail

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