Las Vegas' Heart Attack Grill is just as unhealthy as it claims to be,
and people have even collapsed while gorging themselves on its grease-bomb burgers.
This is the untold truth about one of the most notorious restaurants in America.
The Heart Attack Grill officially opened in 2005, and it wasn't always located in Las Vegas.
It actually started out in Tempe, Arizona. The mastermind behind the concept is Jon Basso,
who goes by the moniker "Dr. Jon, Chief Surgeon" when he's talking about his culinary creation.
And in case you were wondering, no, he's not a real doctor. It turns out that he came up
with the idea for the grill after writing about it as a part of a marketing thesis.
The entire idea was built around controversy. As Basso notes,
"I tell everybody, 'Don't come here every day of the week; it'll kill you.'"
When the thesis turned into reality, it was a burger joint serving up 8,000-calorie burgers
and fries cooked in lard. At a time when many people were getting more health-conscious
and the obesity crisis in America was getting more and more attention,
a restaurant that advertised that it had a "taste worth dying for"
ended up being just as controversial as Basso had hoped. Consequently, the
restaurant made national headlines, even though Basso has never spent any money on advertising.
Basso didn't start out as a restaurateur. Oddly enough, he used to be in the business of helping
people eat healthy and get in shape. He was a franchisee for Jenny Craig, but it wasn't
long before he started to get disillusioned by the whole thing. In 2012, he told Eater,
"You are not being very real with people and by the nature of the fitness industry, it's
disgusting because you are promising people things that are outside genetic possibility...Year after
year went by and I became more and more jaded and bitter. After a while, I couldn't stand to look at
myself in the mirror because I was a complete fraud who was supporting my family by lying."
Basso then found himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit, as a certain fast food chain was
suing him and his In and Out workout studios for copyright infringement. After fighting for
a while, he realized he had no way of winning, so he got out of the fitness business. From there,
he took the opportunity to do something honest. He firmly believes that people are predestined
to suffer from things like heart attacks and cancer based on the genes they've inherited. He
also believes that while diet and exercise might contribute a bit to our health, those are the
main factors. So, as Basso sees it, why not just gorge yourself on that Quadruple Bypass burger?
In 2011, the Heart Attack Grill had its own spokesman: 575-pound Blair River, who was at
the time 29 years old. In March of that year, he passed away after four days in the hospital.
He had reportedly succumbed to pneumonia after battling the flu. Then in February 2012,
it was reported that a Heart Attack Grill customer passed away after suffering a heart attack while
dining there. He had been eating a Triple Bypass Burger, and he was taken to a nearby hospital.
Just a few months later, another customer collapsed after eating a Double Bypass Burger,
smoking cigarettes, and drinking a margarita. She was unconscious when the paramedics arrived,
but she was taken to a nearby hospital and was reported to be recovering.
In 2013, John Alleman, known as the Heart Attack Grill's "daily customer and unofficial mascot",
died after suffering a heart attack and collapsing as he stood at the bus
stop in front of the restaurant. He was the inspiration for the "Patient John"
character seen around the restaurant. In 2017, Business Insider talked to Jon Basso
about this disturbing trend of health emergencies, and he had this to say:
"Death equals business at the Heart Attack Grill.
Will it please me if other spokesmen die in the future? Absolutely."
Basso has given some very strange interviews over the years. At the heart of all of them is
his claim that he's just being honest. When he was on Bloomberg TV in 2013, for example, he declared,
"I say it boldly: Don't come to my restaurant, it is bad for you and will kill you."
He went on to compare himself to fast food chains like McDonald's, as he noted,
"We all know that burgers and fries and Chicken McNuggets or anything else that
corporate fast food chains can throw out at you are absolutely horrible for your health,
as is the food I serve. But I am probably the only restaurateur in the world unapologetically
telling you my food is bad for you and will kill you and stay away from it."
In 2012, Basso talked to Eater about the media coverage he's gotten and
the condemnation he's received. He took the opportunity to say,
"I don't have a total disregard for my fellow man,
of course not, because if you stop and realize it, I put out a broader,
far-reaching message about health and fitness than any other physician in America. Period."
His reasoning is that obesity is still a problem in America, despite all the work done by the
fitness and medical communities. Since he believes they've failed in their mission,
he's decided to take a different approach. He likens it to an intervention, and he hopes that
going to the Heart Attack Grill will be a life-changing experience for his customers.
If it seems like Jon Basso is all talk and bluster, you should know that he's
gone pretty far to prove his point about how unhealthy his restaurant is. In 2013,
he was on Bloomberg's In the Loop with Betty Liu to talk about his food when
he pulled out a plastic bag of powder and put it on the desk. Then he said,
"I'm here with the cremated remains of someone who died at my restaurant.
He died of a heart attack at my restaurant, and I'm putting the bag clearly on the table.
I wish that Burger King, McDonald's, and everyone else would do the same thing."
When a shocked Liu pointed out how grim things had suddenly gotten, Basso agreed. As he put it,
"Absolutely. Because the entire fast-food industry is pretty grim."
Clearly, Basso is willing to go extreme lengths to maintain his reputation of honesty.
The staff of the Heart Attack Grill is also part of the gimmick, as waitresses dress as nurses and
spank customers who can't finish what they order. So what's it really like working there? One former
employee took to Reddit to answer that question, and she had plenty to say. For one thing,
she noted that the spankings were legitimate and that some waitresses would hit customers
as hard as they could, while others were a little more forgiving. When asked if it
ever got uncomfortable, she revealed that it could if the customer made it "creepy."
The former employee said that there were more repeat customers than one might expect,
like locals who would frequently take advantage of the free meal offered
to anyone weighing over 350 pounds. She also revealed some distressing memories,
like the time that a male customer passed out and an ambulance had to be called. As she recalled,
"A manager made me take out my cell phone to record a video of the whole thing,
so they could send it to the media. It was on a Friday afternoon,
and he hoped it would make the news so they could have a busy weekend."
It's not just the incredibly unhealthy food that makes the Heart Attack Grill controversial,
as people have also taken offense at its portrayal of nurses. Specifically, organizations like the
Arizona Board of Nursing and the Center for Nursing Advocacy have taken issue with the
waitresses who dress in cleavage-revealing nurses' uniforms. These groups believe that
it's degrading to the entire profession and that it's also troublesome that all the women
are nurses while the men dress as doctors. As these groups have noted, these are outdated
gender divisions that the medical profession has been working to overcome. Individual nurses have
also appealed to Arizona's attorney general's office to intervene to get the restaurant to stop
using the uniforms. Jon Basso's response back in 2006 wasn't especially understanding, as he said,
"If anything, I think it glorifies nurses to be thought of as a physically attractive
and desirable individual. There's a Faye Dunaway, Florence Nightingale hipness to it.
Nobody wants to think of themselves as some old battle ax who changes bedpans for a living."
The Arizona Board of Nursing also went after Basso for claiming on his web site that his
employees were actual nurses, when none of them had any medical training whatsoever.
He refused to remove the title, though, instead adding a footnote saying that
there were no actual medical personnel on staff and that it was all just a joke.
In 2013, the Heart Attack Grill made it into the Guinness Book of World Records with its
Quadruple Bypass Burger. Specifically, it was being recognized for "the world's
most calorific burger." This concoction consists of four half-pound hamburgers,
cooked in lard and covered with caramelized onions that are also cooked in lard, along with eight
slices of cheese, mayo, ketchup, and mustard. It all comes out to a whopping 9,982 calories.
Customers have the option to turn that burger into the Heart Attack Meal,
which means adding a milkshake and fries to boost the total calorie count up to 12,410.
As if that isn't heart-stopping enough, in 2015, the Heart Attack Grill beat its own
record with the Octuple Bypass Burger. This monstrosity includes 40 pieces of bacon,
chili, cheese, and eight patties. It's about a foot-and-a-half tall, and anyone who manages to
eat it would be consuming 19,900 calories. For anyone interested in doing the math,
that's the amount of calories most people eat over the course of 10 days.
As unlikely as it may seem, the Heart Attack Grill isn't the only restaurant that's
decided its gimmick should be killing its own customers. There was also the Heart Attack Shack,
a burger joint in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Jon Basso didn't take lightly to the competition,
so he sued over trademark infringement. If you're hoping to visit the place that
caused all this fuss, we regret to inform you that it's since closed.
The Heart Attack Shack isn't the only place that Basso has taken legal action against.
He's also gone after a Florida eatery called Heart Stoppers Grill, which was a more family-friendly
location than its Vegas competitor, and which has also since closed. Additionally, in 2012, he
went after New York City's 2nd Avenue Deli, which had an Instant Heart Attack Sandwich on its menu.
Unfortunately for Basso, a federal judge ruled in the deli's favor, allowing them to keep the
sandwich. Since that legal victory, they've even added a Triple Bypass Sandwich to their menu.
After all this, you may be wondering:
can the Heart Attack Grill actually give you a heart attack? According to Yale
University professor of medicine Dr. Harlan Krumholz, who spoke to ABC News in 2012,
"There is some evidence that a high-fat meal can transiently affect the blood vessels,
but little support for the idea that a high-fat meal can trigger a heart attack."
Krumholz added,
"Poor diet certainly does seem that it can contribute to risk over time,
but no one has yet shown that it has an immediate effect that can precipitate the heart attack."
Thus, there's little to no evidence that a one-time trip to the Heart Attack Grill
is going to cause a heart attack. Everyday Health echoed that sentiment in a 2011 article,
noting that making a habit of unhealthy foods is definitely a bad idea,
as it does contribute to increased risk of a heart attack and other ailments.
But if you indulge only every once in a while, it's probably not going to kill you.
"A healthy diet is a diet that makes the patient happy."
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