Health Concerns

Heart Attack Grill Owner Delighted That Diners Keep Heading to the Hospital

Doing America proud.
Doing America proud. Photo: Ayesamson via Flickr

Up until now, it’s been difficult to believe all that garbage from the self-helpy The Secret claiming that whatever you put out into the universe comes back to you. But strangely, it rings true in Las Vegas, of all places. The local Heart Attack Grill outpost watched another customer go down this weekend from health issues that hit in the middle of their meal, necessitating a trip to the hospital. The trauma follows fast on the thick calves of an incident here in February, where paramedics had to come between a customer and his “Triple Bypass Burger” after he had a heart attack at the restaurant, which promotes pure lard-cooked “flatliner fries” and “Quadruple Bypass Burgers” packing 10,000 calories. Today, the L.A. Times shares a few words from the owner, Joe Basso, who couldn’t sound more thrilled about another customer falling unconscious while drinking a margarita and smoking this past Saturday.

Basso is kind of like the Joe Francis of fast food, a junk peddler who offers free meals to people weighing over 350 pounds (he even weighs them) and claims that the warnings he posts about consuming five times a grown man’s daily calorie recommendation “skirts any liability we might have.”

In fact, he sounds pretty delighted that his ruinous food has hit the headlines again, telling the paper, “We attract an avant-garde clientele — thrill seekers, risk takers,” with a shocking disregard for self-awareness. Basso also acknowledges, “when you treat your body like that day in and day out, eventually your body is going to give out,” nonchalant about the fact that he’s the one selling this deadly dining experience and that his waitresses might call you a “pussy” if you don’t finish your burger.

“So what is it about someone who sees that sign and sees that this burger has 9,993 calories in it, and that person says ‘I want one of those,’” the owner asks in a reflective mood, stressing again that his place is for “that very bleeding edge, that avant-garde of risk takers.” That’s right, Joe, a country with Doritos-shell tacos and Double Downs on every block really needs your guidance in pushing the envelope, you crazy avant-garde artist, you.

Heart Attack Grill strikes again? Owner calls diners ‘risk-takers’ [LAT]

Heart Attack Grill Owner Delighted That Diners Keep Heading to the Hospital