Lucky Restaurant

Lucky Restaurant in Ahmedabad, India is known for its popular menu, spacious seating, and also the exposed gravestones and burial sarcophagi that the tables are set up around.

When Lucky owner Krishnan Kutti was faced with the fact that the land he was to open his new restaurant on was in fact a cemetery, he decided to capitalize on the dilemma. Instead of paving over the graves or disinterring them, Kutti simply built his restaurant around them, actually making the burial plots the main attraction. Steel bars have been erected around the graves so that no one will tread on the deceased, but other than that small protection, the dead are your dinner companions. No one is even sure who the graves belong to, but the prevailing theory is that they belonged to Muslim followers of a 16th century Sufi saint.

The displayed graves in the restaurant are not meant to be disrespectful or overtly morbid either. In fact, Kutti claims that eating in the presence of the dead is good luck, or at least it has been for him as his business has flourished as a popular local hangout for more than a decade. Each morning the graves are cleaned and fresh flowers are placed near them out of respect.

The green stone coffins are scattered around the restaurant in a seemingly random pattern and customers must navigate their way to their tables among the dead. The Lucky’s name might seem ironic considering how many dead people are buried there, but if their business is any indicator the name fits perfectly.