We go over to the Grand Lake area in Oakland every once in a while to eat at a fun Italian place called Zza’s. It’s not impossible to find a parking place there, but you wind up walking to the restaurant from somewhere in the neighborhood. And while doing that some time ago, we noticed this: Sunset Casket Outlet. The whole idea of a casket outlet is not brand new, and everyone knows that the funeral business is a ridiculously expensive proposition. But this is the only one I’ve seen (in fact, a local weekly once named it the area’s best casket store).
I wish I’d taken a better picture, but inside the window you can just make out one of the odd floor-model caskets. It’s got some painted-on pictures and some graffitied-on slogans relevant is some way to a potential customer. Strange. Tacky (or, in contemporary vernacular, “ghetto”). And just half the price of what most casket stores would charge.
That reminds me of a funeral director I met from Michigan. He offered a value priced casket with some assembly required. To take full advantage of the value, the family could come to the funeral home, he would give them the instruction sheet and the family would snap the casket together.