[photo credit: Pasadena Public Library]
The Death Café, hosted at La Pintoresca Branch Library, is deceptively simple: strangers gather over tea, coffee, and cake to talk about dying, mortality, and what it means to live fully. There is no agenda, no conclusion, no sales pitch. The only rule is that everyone gets to speak.
This modest gathering represents something quietly revolutionary happening across the globe. Nearly 23,000 Death Cafés have taken place in 95 countries since 2011. The movement began when Jon Underwood hosted the first official Death Café in September 2011 in his home in Hackney, with his mother, a psychotherapist, facilitating.
Underwood described the purpose with precision: “You know you have a certain time left, and then the question is, ‘What is important for me to do in that time?’ That’s different for everyone, so talking about death, for me at least, is the ultimate prioritization exercise.”
Pasadena’s Death Café on January 24 is not the first the library has hosted. In 2025 alone, the library held Death Cafés in July, August, October, and November. Academic research supports the gatherings: a 2024 study published in Palliative Care and Social Practice found Death Cafés provide “a safe space for students and healthcare professionals to openly explore topics related to death, loss, and disease.”
The January 24 event is free and open to adults. No registration required; walk-ins welcome.
Death Café at La Pintoresca Branch Library will run on Saturday, Jan. 24 at 11 a.m.–1 p.m. La Pintoresca Branch Library, 1355 N Raymond Ave, Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 744-7268 or visit https://www.cityofpasadena.net/library/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D194048951.
