What is a Death Cafe?

I had come across the term ‘Death Cafe’ during my training to be a celebrant and was intrigued by the aim as stated on the website of DeathCafe.com - “Our aim is to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives”.  The movement originated from the work of Bernar Crettaz a Swiss sociologist and anthropologist; he organised what is believed to be the first ‘cafe mortel’ in 2004.  Inspired by this work, in 2011 Jon Underwood held a Death Cafe in London and established the organisation’s website.  The movement has since grown significantly and more than 20340 Death Cafes have now been held in 93 countries worldwide. 

The refreshments are an important element!

The aim of a Death Cafe is to open up conversations about death; there is no agenda and conversations develop organically. Death is a shared experience that unites us as human beings; there is no expert on death and therefore there can be no talks from so-called experts! Anyone interested is welcome and whilst sometimes, interest is piqued by an experience of grief, a Death Cafe is not a bereavement service.  You can reasonably expect those that attend to be kind and empathetic to those in grief, but they are not able to offer counselling. Death Cafes are social franchises - they are run by volunteers in accordance with the principles of the organisation.  These are to ensure that meetings are run:

• on a non profit basis, 

• are open and accessible to all, 

• do not follow an agenda or aim for any particular conclusion but rather 

• offer the opportunity for interested parties to chat alongside refreshments about death.  

Photo with kind permisssion of Juliet Golding - celebrant.

Experiencing a Death Cafe for the first time on a Celebrant Retreat recently was eye-opening.  The chance to consider questions such as ‘What makes a good death?’, ‘Is a funeral for the living or the deceased?’ and many more with fellow celebrants from a wide variety of backgrounds was fascinating.  Several of my fellow participants in the retreat had a nursing background and their reflections on what they had seen and felt when nursing the dying were illuminating.  One participant had been in the emergency services and had witnessed too often the trauma of sudden death; for her the chance to prepare was central to a ‘good death’.  The experience of this death cafe inspired me to look for another.  When I found there were none in my area I started to prepare to lead my own.  The DeathCafe.com website offers clear advice and guidance on how to do this and I am honoured to be offering this opportunity to my community.

Death is something of a taboo in our society; people find thinking, talking and sharing ideas about death exceptionally hard.  Those that do seek to explore their ideas with others are often met with awkward silence or a quick change of conversation.  This adds to people’s sense of fear around death and leaves us, all too often, unprepared when a loved one dies.  In my work as a celebrant, I see the added difficulty when people are arranging a funeral for a loved one and have no idea what that person wanted, believed or felt about death.  This adds to the sense of loss and isolation.   By talking about death, dying and living, a Death Cafe aims to challenge the taboo and offer inspiration for life.

By Catrina Young, Leicestershire Heart-led celebrant, Marking Life’s Moments.

© Hardingstone Ceremonies, April, 2025