Q: When does a person decide to become an accountant?
A: When he realises he doesn’t have the charisma to succeed as an undertaker.
It’s hard to say what drove these Ukrainian undertakers to build a giant coffin, fill it with a bunch of average-sized coffins and wreaths, and then start serving dinner inside of it. Whatever the motivation, whether it was driven by marketing, or simply their love of the craft, the Eternity Restaurant is a sight to behold.
Crowned unchallenged as the largest coffin in the world by Guinness World Records, the casket is 20 meters long, 6 meters wide, and 6 meters high. Made out of pine (what else?) and furnished inside with the finest funeral décor, guests can enjoy dour dinners surrounded in the trappings of the recently deceased.
Single candles light the intimate tables, where patrons can order morbid dishes with ominous, vague names such as “Let’s meet in Paradise”, or more the more distinctly death oriented “Forty Day Salad”, which eludes to local mourning ritual of repeating memorial services 40 days after a soul’s sad departure.
Run by a local funeral parlor, the restaurant is located in the town of Truskavets, in the west of the country near the Polish border. It was the concept of the parlor’s director, Stepan Pyrianyk, who not only loves his work, but loves a good meal.