Arizona's Artery Assault
The Heart Attack Grill Ups the Calorie Count and the Competition

It is hard to deny the urge to call a friend and tell them about a restaurant/bar where cigarettes, surgical scrubs and full-sugar Coca-Cola imported from Mexico play into the mix. And the truth of it is, most customers aren’t resisting. The Heart Attack Grill: “home of the double bypass burger,” is a Tempe, Ariz., man’s answer to big profits.         Owner and operator Jon Basso understands what men and women want when they go out to ease the worries of the world with a meal and a beer. While employed in the fitness industry, he says he came to the realization that everyone has a “cheat day” at least once a week, and he set out to change professions and provide them with the best elements of “cheating.”

Cigarettes, Beer & Burgers
    The Heart Attack Grill is definitely an adult sort of place. Scantily clad nurses serve up burgers that are dripping with grease, cheese and bacon and in the case of the legendary “quadruple bypass burger,” may contain a full 2 pounds of meat. Customers can also smoke their Marlboros, Camels or filter-free Lucky Strikes provided on-premise, sip off of Bud Light, Corona or a Tempe Kilt Lifter Microbrew and chow down on a side of fries, cooked in straight lard.
    “I tell people, ‘do not, under any circumstances, come more than once a week,’” says Basso. “Everything we have is a well-balanced diet to get you on your way to a heart attack. It is a very bad for you place, which is a lot of fun. You never see a frowning face at The Heart Attack Grill.”

Adult Playground
The Heart Attack Grill may be small in size, but on a good day, Basso and his crew of nurses will serve 400 people, cutting through 30 cases of Bud Light in a week and 20 cases of Corona a week. Another testament to the concept’s success is the fact that more than 300 newspapers worldwide have published editorial on the establishment.
“In the old days,” Basso says, “we were 95-percent male because there was a Hooters element. But now, we have become a tourist trap. So we are 2/3 male and 1/3 female.”
    The success has not been without challenges for Basso, and recently he came under crutiny from the attorney general for his use of the appellation “nurses.” Claiming that calling his female staff “nurses” was offensive to men and women in the hospital profession, Basso says, that the attorney general actually threatened to close him down.
    “But he was dumb enough to write it down,” he says. “I played possum and said I would comply.”
    Basso then posted the letter from the attorney general on the Heart Attack Grill’s Web site, where customers could read it and openly view the ludicrous nature of the claim.
    “I am the normal guy teaching the world how to market the most ubiquitous product in the world, which is a hamburger,” Basso says.
    “People who are of a generation of the ‘50s and ‘60s might find me to be repugnant, but they aren’t this generation.”                               NCB