Restaurant owners worldwide strive to create decor that attracts customers, often favoring unconventional ideas. However, few can compare to the extraordinary concept found in India, a country renowned for its unique culture and lifestyle. One such establishment is the New Lucky Restaurant, which has been serving customers for over 50 years. Its peculiarity lies in its location—built on an old cemetery. It is not unusual to find gravestones scattered around the restaurant, with diners enjoying their meals beside these monuments, seemingly unfazed by their presence. The deceased have become an unusual attraction, contributing to the restaurant’s appeal.
Located in the Lal Darwaza area of Ahmedabad, the largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat, the New Lucky Restaurant sits near the 16th-century Sidi Saiyyed Mosque. From the outside, it appears like any other restaurant, but once inside, the surprise awaits. Tables and chairs are arranged around gravestones resembling coffins, and patrons dine alongside the dead. The story behind the restaurant’s creation dates back to the 1950s when two young men, Koti Nair and his partner Muhammad Bhai, began their business with a small tea cart. They served masala tea to locals and visitors of the nearby mosque and cemetery. As their business grew, the partners decided to build a 280-square-meter restaurant on the cemetery grounds, taking care to preserve the gravestones rather than removing them. They positioned the tables around the graves to avoid disturbing the dead, using the site to create a unique blend of the living and the deceased in a bustling area filled with offices and schools.
New Lucky Restaurant offers a full menu of Indian cuisine but is particularly famous for its masala tea and maska cake, a type of bread slice with butter. The restaurant is popular among locals and visitors alike, including renowned Indian painter Maqbool Husain, a close friend of the late Muhammad Bhai. Husain enjoyed drinking tea at the restaurant whenever he visited the city, even stating that it gave him a sense of life and death, which he found commendable. One of Husain’s famous abstract works, featuring colorful blocks and Urdu inscriptions reading “God is One,” is displayed in the restaurant.
The tables are meticulously arranged around the 12 graves, which are marked with small fences. The restaurant’s owners show respect for the deceased by cleaning, decorating, and offering flowers at the graves. They also built a modest mosque adjacent to the restaurant to honor the dead, providing a place for the living to pray. Unlike the busy restaurant, the small mosque is quiet and receives only a few visitors.
New Lucky Restaurant opens its doors from 5 AM until around midnight and is often crowded. Although the staff may not speak English fluently, they understand tourists’ orders. Diners are comfortable eating beside the graves, as local residents believe the graves belong to 16th-century Sufi saints. While dining among the dead might seem unusual, the restaurant’s owner sees it as a good luck charm, and the establishment has thrived, becoming one of the city’s most distinctive landmarks.
