Death Café

What is a Death Cafe – and is there cake?

At a Death Cafe, people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea, and discuss death.
The objective is ‘to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives’. It is a group-directed conversation about death with no agenda, objectives, or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session.

Death Cafes were first run in 2011 in East London by Jon Underwood and were based on the work of Bernard Crettaz, a Swiss sociologist who founded ‘Les Cafes Mortels’ and ran them for 10 years until 2014.

What is the Cost?
Death Cafes are free of charge and are a gift to the community; however, donations for refreshments are welcome.

Death has been an unpopular and often discouraged topic of discussion in recent Western history. But a global movement is aiming to change that. Death Cafe’s are popping up all over the world and are overwhelmingly well-received. Why would anyone want to talk about death? Here’s one person’s answer to that question:

 Why I Talk About Death is a short film by one facilitator talking about her reasoning for running a death cafe.

Death Cafes have received some lovely media coverage including:

– Death Be Not Decaffeinated: Over Cup, Groups Face Taboo New York Times (front page!)

– Death Cafes Breathe Life Into Conversations About Dying NPR

– The death cafe movement: Tea and mortality Independent

– ‘Death cafes’ normalize a difficult, not morbid, topic USA Today

Find out more about Death Cafes here: deathcafe.com

Please reserve your place, as numbers are limited: Call Reception on 020 8694 2714 or email us at manager@thesunflowercentre.co.uk