Heart Attack Grill lives up to its name

[Dominarch's Hope]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/hea ... 58075.html

A regular patron and unofficial spokesman for the Heart Attack Grill has died of an apparent heart attack, the restaurant's owner said on Monday.

John Alleman reportedly suffered a heart attack last week outside the Las Vegas restaurant, according to the Las Vegas Sun. The 52-year-old was taken off life support on Monday.

Alleman, who was not on the restaurant's payroll, inspired the "Patient John" character that appears on the restaurant's menu.

"He lived a very full life," Jon Basso, owner of the Heart Attack Grill, told the newspaper. "He will be missed."

“I told him if you keep eating like this, it’s going to kill ya,” Basso said. “He’d say, 'I just love your place, Jon.' He’s the only person I know who was probably at the restaurant more than I [was]; he’d be here every darned day.”

Alleman is the second unofficial Heart Attack Grill spokesman to die in as many years.

In March 2011, Blair River, the restaurant's 575-pound representative, died from complications stemming from pneumonia. He was 29.

"Cynical people might think this is funny," Basso said at the time of River's death. "But people who knew him are crying their eyes out. There is a lot of mourning going on around here. You couldn't have found a better person."

Founded in 2005, the unapologetically unhealthy restaurant employs waitresses dressed as nurses and serves butterfat milkshakes, "flatliner" fries and 9,982-calorie "quadruple bypass burgers." (Patrons who are able to finish them are escorted to their cars in wheelchairs.) Customers who weigh over 350 pounds eat free.

Since opening in Las Vegas in October 2011, there have been various reports of customers having medical emergencies while dining at the grill.

Last February, a man reportedly suffered a heart attack while eating a “triple bypass burger." According to Las Vegas' Fox 5 affiliate, he survived.

[Silver Jedi]

Relevant
People keep collapsing in this place, and spokesmen keep dying. I think the only effect it has is a brief bump in business as they end up in the news. I'd try the place out if I was in the area, except that I bet the food is basically just McDonald's only with bigger portions.

[Dominarch's Hope]

Its more outright suicidal than eating at McDonalds though. But you know what? Im still unashamed about my countrymen's eating habits.

Because I know that most of the ROTW is jealous as hell.

[Stark]

Thats because of normalisation bias. A part of having unhealthy attitudes is the belief that everyone else secretly has them too. Its why the board has so many threads where Americans brag about how much disgusting shit they can eat and how 'delicious' it is while everyone else vomits just looking at it.

You know... because bad eating habits is like any substance abuse problem.

[Dominarch's Hope]

You just jealous we have this much food to spare. As is literally the entirety of Eastern Europe. And you're jealous its so relatively cheap.
Spoiler

Mind you, its actually killing us and to some degree, I wish we had a national healthcare system that denied people on the basis of being unhealthy lardasses, if they werent trying. As long as it paid for gym use and stuff. But I wont here British criticism, due to the fact they arent that far behind. Places like this though need to be shut the fuck down.

[Stark]

See? This is why creating healthy attitudes towards food and diet is a decades-long cultural shift, just like smoking and the like.

[Dominarch's Hope]

See? This is why creating healthy attitudes towards food and diet is a decades-long cultural shift, just like smoking and the like.

Decades? Might as well just let lardasses kill themselves off and deny them care constantly and consistently.

[Stark]

That worked so well for smoking, after all. Sadly, in many cases people gain bad eating habits very early and there's little society as a whole can do about it beyond changing attitudes. It works, and it improves people's lives, so its worth it.

And its funny as fuck for not-addicts every time Americans say 'you wish you could eat this' because of how it displays the power of cultural pressures so well.

[Havok]

I just like eating and this place sound delicious.

[Stark]

You should go and when you don't have a heart attack, complain. Demand your meal for free.

[Havok]

Actually as I just weighed in at 353, I would eat for free.

[Erik von Nein]

It's really unimpressive. It's fairly average burger joint food, only all of the ingredients are hideous.

The fries were decent, but god damn was the burger plain.

also they only had coke in bottles those communists

[General Mung Beans]

It's really unimpressive. It's fairly average burger joint food, only all of the ingredients are hideous.

The fries were decent, but god damn was the burger plain.

also they only had coke in bottles those communists

You've been there?

[Covenant]

I love a good burger but this place sounds awful. The description of the food just makes me want to vomit. I have no problem with people voluntarily doing this to themselves as a... I don't know, a stunt, or a dare, but I really am upset at how he has deliberately gone out to make a kind of "Food Porn" or "Cheat on your Diet" place (his words) and then made an additional step to encourage repeat or heavy business. The eat free thing... I don't know, it strikes me the wrong way.

Furthermore, while the food is indeed shockingly bad for you, I can't say it looks good. This isn't really the point, but it undercuts the "Food Porn" aspect. You get a burger with bacon on it and that's basically all you have available, you just get a choice of how high you want to stack them. This isn't food porn, unless you assume porn has to leave you feeling a deep sense of self-loathing and regret. It's just a grotesque, cynical monument to many of America's terrible problems. My father has a food addiction, and I don't know how many people who attend this place do, but it instantly makes me upset to hear they're encouraging the people who most need nutritional assistance to eat there more often. It also reinforces that "eat shitty food in huge quantities" thing. I love to eat, I really do, but I wouldn't want to eat shitty food and nobody should make shitty food in an intentionally unhealthy style and then act like he's some culinary revolutionary.

If he was making the finest kind of disgusting suicide shit that you can get for less than 10 bucks a plate, I might consider it a guilty pleasure like most burgers are, and dismiss a lot the negativity. But something about this just strikes me wrong on so many levels. Shitty, dangerously unhealthy food with an intentionally sexist treatment of waitstaff an an encouragement of this kind of eating with an eat-free offer... I don't even know... it just sounds so toxic on so many levels.

There's an article about the Nurse outfits the serving staff wear. I can't say I find the outfit at all appealing myself, but the attitude the waitress was quoted at just blows my mind. ""They definitely look at us, but they're guys," she said. "If our butts are coming out the bottom of our skirts, and our boobs are coming out the top of our shirts, we're kind of asking for it."

Basically, all these people are consenting adults, sorta. I can't really see a reason to go by and nuke the place, but holy crap is it a disturbing institution. If I want some good fries and a burger I'll head over to Five Guys. This place makes me feel ill, and I can't imagine the food wouldn't too.

[madd0ct0r]

Actually as I just weighed in at 353, I would eat for free.

damn, dude, you're twice the man i am.

[Raw Shark]

Honestly, I can't knock Basso for any of this. The guy sounds like he has some humungous cognitive disconnect going on between his professed affection for his biggest fans and his comp policy that seems more-or-less blatantly designed to enable their suicides for publicity, but that affection is, in my humble opinion, genuine. Somebody comes in every day and, in the face of your mild admonishment, tells you he loves your life's work. Are you really going to turn that man away?

[Lagmonster]

There's an article about the Nurse outfits the serving staff wear. I can't say I find the outfit at all appealing myself, but the attitude the waitress was quoted at just blows my mind. ""They definitely look at us, but they're guys," she said. "If our butts are coming out the bottom of our skirts, and our boobs are coming out the top of our shirts, we're kind of asking for it."

What about that blows your mind?

[Spoonist]

Why would the 350+ eat for free? Wouldn't that be the core customers for the restaurant?

[AniThyng]

I imagine a lot of business is from people with otherwise normal diets that just want to try it for the hell of it.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

I imagine a lot of business is from people with otherwise normal diets that just want to try it for the hell of it.

Meanwhile I imagine that it is a sign of decadence for a people to celebrate their society's worst failings like this. I don't say that it isn't their choice to make, of course it is. But it is decadence.

[Raw Shark]

Why would the 350+ eat for free? Wouldn't that be the core customers for the restaurant?

Because every time somebody dies there, it makes international news. Also, because they still have to pay for sodas, cigarettes, and alcohol, so it could potentially work out to kind of a big tab even if they don't pay for the burger.

[Dominarch's Hope]

There's an article about the Nurse outfits the serving staff wear. I can't say I find the outfit at all appealing myself, but the attitude the waitress was quoted at just blows my mind. ""They definitely look at us, but they're guys," she said. "If our butts are coming out the bottom of our skirts, and our boobs are coming out the top of our shirts, we're kind of asking for it."

What about that blows your mind?

I concur, unlike what the internet may imply, most women, and people in general, just go with things and have a much higher tolerance threshold for what consitutes creepy and excessive.

Looking and Glancing are not the same as staring and whistling to most women. And some women occasionally enjoy the attention. To a degree.

Not every woman takes horrendous offense at every sexual overture. But most due take offense when its persistent even after being rebuked.

[Covenant]

What about that blows your mind?

The language is just so blatant and uneducated, not the fact that she's willing to be stared at for what I can only assume is something of a decent paycheck. The two parts that got my dander up were the "they look at us, but they're guys," as if that would excuse something automatically. I get annoyed when it reduces men to the level of a chimpanzee, and when you combine it with some of the comments made by the men in the article, it just sounds like a really skeevy establishment.

The last bit that annoyed me was the phrase "We're kind of asking for it," which in this case would be technically true, is a poor use of language. Its obvious why they used this quote to end the article, it's a strong quote to give a definite spin, but it just feels like the attitudes in this place are out of a time capsule. Its not the vilest thing I've heard, it's just primitive. Here's another quote:

"If anything, I think it glorifies nurses to be thought of as a physically attractive and desirable individual," Basso said. "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."

Like I said, it just fits so stereotypically with what you might consider to be some of the boilerplate "incorrect" response to the situation. Glorifying nurses as sex objects? That's just rich. But I think it may be partially intentional, as the guy has said flat-out that he enjoys controversies and even bad news, since it increases business. He may be quite happy to let people keel over in his place just to improve business. He wants to start franchises around the country. If his business model works then he'll absolutely expand.

[Havok]

Actually as I just weighed in at 353, I would eat for free.

damn, dude, you're twice the man i am.

In more ways than one.

[Havok]

I imagine a lot of business is from people with otherwise normal diets that just want to try it for the hell of it.

Meanwhile I imagine that it is a sign of decadence for a people to celebrate their society's worst failings like this. I don't say that it isn't their choice to make, of course it is. But it is decadence.

Oh get off your high fucking horse. Spending $1000+ on your "smart phone" or 300 channels of TV is decadence. This is something that most normal people do on vacation as it is in Vegas, the definition of decadence, and probably only do a couple times. It's an attraction. Something you go back and disgust your friends with. I also fail to see how having an abundance of food is a failing of society. Seems like a success to me.