Heart Attack Grill

October 3, 2008

in Non-Stories

Can you imagine a restaurant boasting that it serves food that is harmful, and whose owner advises diners not to eat at his restaurant every day or “it’ll kill you?” That’s the unique marketing angle of Heart Attack Grill located in Tempe, Arizona. The menu includes the massive Quadruple Bypass Burger (2 pounds of beef, 12 slices of bacon, 4 triple-thick slices of cheese, a whole tomato and half an onion), high caffeine cola, beer, Flatliner Fries, and unfiltered cigarettes. Food is cooked in 100% lard. Of course, the restaurant’s registered trademark is, “Food Worth Dying For.”

Diners (called “patients”) who finish a Triple or Quadruple Bypass Burger are escorted to their cars afterwards in wheelchairs pushed by scantily-clad waitresses wearing naughty nurse uniforms. Ironically the restaurant’s founder, Jon Basso, used to operate a chain of personal fitness centers. Basso, who goes by the name of “Dr. Jon,” wears a doctor’s coat along with a stethoscope draped around his neck. He calls his food “nutritional pornography.”

Not surprisingly, Heart Attack Grill has had its share of controversies, but not as much as would be expected from the food police. Rather, most of it arose from the Center For Nursing Advocacy which objected to the personification of nurses as “brainless sluts,” and expressed concerns about stereotypes arising from nursing being “the most sexually fantasized-about profession.” The restaurant also received notice from the State of Arizona that it was violating a statute regarding usage of the title “nurse.” Needless to say, the complaints have generated a lot of publicity for the restaurant whose website states that it’s never spent “a single advertising penny.” Below is a video from NBC’s Dateline program about Heart Attack Grill. Many more videos about the restaurant are posted on YouTube.

Big Paulie May 6, 2010 at 12:33 am

I applaud the creativity of their approach.

People love to have the “forbidden fruit.” Why not exploit that part of human nature.

And beside, the cigarette companies have been plying us with products which display far more horrible warnings on their packages than the heart attack grill displays on its menus.

og May 10, 2010 at 5:30 pm

yeah kinda dumb, but what I would object to is not their sexism or marketing of unhealthiness, but the fact that they are lawsuit happy. i’ll never go there

Gregg February 15, 2012 at 10:48 pm

Recent news about Heart Attack Grill: Man suffers heart attack at Heart Attack Grill.

NoRestForTheWicked April 29, 2012 at 1:49 am

At least they warn you how bad it is. XD

On a side note: I totally want to try one off those bypass burgers. It'd take me weeks to finish it.

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