It was always going to be unwise naming a restaurant that glorifies unhealthy food the Heart Attack Grill.
And on Saturday the inevitable happened when a customer suffered a cardiac arrest in the chain’s Las Vegas branch. An onlooker captured video of paramedics wheeling the unidentified man, thought to be in his 40s, out of the fast-food diner.He was midway through eating a 6,000-calorie Triple Bypass Burger when he began experiencing chest pains.
The restaurant chain – founded in 2005 using the catchphrase ‘Taste Worth Dying For!’ – is run by a former nutritionist ‘Doctor’ Jon Basso who, remarkably, used to run a Jenny Craig weight loss diet centre.
He denied the incident was an elaborate publicity stunt.
Mr Basso told Fox News: ‘The gentleman could barely talk. He was sweating, suffering.
‘I actually felt horrible for him because the tourists were taking photos of him as if it were some type of stunt.
‘Even with our own morbid sense of humour, we would never pull a stunt like that.’
The Heart Attack Grill sells calorie-laden fare with names such as Quadruple Bypass Burgers and Flatline Fries.
Meals can exceed 8,000 calories. The recommended daily intake is 2,000 calories for women and 2,500 for men.
The Triple Bypass Burger contains three slabs of meat, 12 rashes of bacon, cheese, red onion, sliced tomato and the Heart Attack Grill’s own ‘unique special sauce’. And that’s before taking into account the accompanying ‘Flatliner Fries’, cooked in pure lard, and a giant soft drink.
Accentuating the medical theme, waitresses dressed as nurses deliver the artery-clogging food.
A sign at the entrance to an Arizona restaurant reads: ‘Go away. If you come in this place, it’s going to kill you.’
But the chain has provoked widespread anger with promotions including offering free food to morbidly obese customers.