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Modern, even modern, morgues around the world have hope in one question: how to commemorate death in 2024?
By Annabel Nugent
Reporting from London
In London’s thriving Crouch End, a new venture is attracting attention. The store’s blue and white façade is airy and minimalist. Three polka dot vases on pedestals occupy a proud position in front of the window. For the informal observer, the look of the area as an art gallery. But through the window is something a little more curious: a green seafoam box measuring 7 feet by 2 feet.
It is when they see the box that passers-by will take a double look at the store’s sign: Come out. Polka dot vases are not vases. These are ballot boxes. The urn is a coffin. And at the back, unbeknownst to them, there is a morgue for 12 people.
“We knew the call would be Marmite,” said Oliver Peyton, a famous restaurateur, comparing the polarized reactions to his funeral home’s brazen call to those caused by the spread of British yeast. “You either love it or hate it. My mother: “The father-in-law hates him.
Peyton, who founded Exit Here’s first branch in Chiswick in 2019 as a trendy option to classic funeral homes, is a familiar face on the UK hospitality scene – he’s the founder of the Atlantic Bar.
Peyton, 62, from Sligo, Ireland, became interested in the mortuary business while planning the funeral of his father, who died in 2010. He felt that there wasn’t enough selection in the process. “Funerals have traditionally been a second-hand activity. “business,” he said, adding that other people tend to use the funeral home closest to their homes.
He also believes that organizing funerals has a lot to do with hospitality. “It’s still a service industry,” he said. “We take care of other people who are going through a very intense emotional stage in their lives. “
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