Heart Attack Grill: Watch Cholesterol

The owner of The Heart Attack Grill, Dr. John, self-admittedly unrecognized as an M.D. by the American Medical Association, unapologetically stated while being interviewed by Bill Geist at CBS, that the restaurant's "motto is simple: taste worth dying for."

The Heart Attack Grill's gimmick includes wrist bands for customers that are reminiscent of those given to hospital patients, scantily clad "nurses", a.k.a. waitresses on duty, and lab coats complete with stethoscopes for the restaurant's managers.

"I run, perhaps, the only honest restaurant in America. This is bad for you, and it's gonna kill ya," Dr. John says.

The quadruple bypass burger, an 8,000 calorie affair, includes two pounds of ground beef, 8 slices of cheese and buns coated in lard. French fries are also fried in pure lard and no diet sodas or light beers are available for order. Lettuce isn't even served on the burgers.

And yet, even in today's supposedly health-conscious world (at least for us in the U.S., as we seem to be having a bigger obesity, diabetes and heart disease problem than many other countries), The Heart Attack Grill still stays not only in business, but popular.

The tongue in cheek humor that centers around the unhealthiness of the food served here reminds me of another restaurant I've visited called Dick's Last Resort. Instead of unhealthy food, Dick's has incredibly rude waiters. Hats are made for each customer out of rolls of butcher paper, designed to represent condoms, and written on with a sharpie, saying something rude about the wearer. I visited at 16 years old and my hat said "my date is hung like a midget squirrel." The waiter also threatened to draw chest hair on said date's skin if he didn't button his shirt higher. There, you're experiencing treatment that you would never stand for in another setting, but it's the whole reason you go to Dick's.

Although the Heart Attack Grill takes pride in their unhealthy menu, something may be said for their ingredients. According to Michael Pollan's In Defense Of Food and Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat, being healthy is more about eating natural, unprocessed foods than anything else. Perhaps, in all truth, a fatty and natural burger is better for you than the most nutritionally "safe" power bar. There is some evidence to support this.

If this is true, than portion size aside, The Heart Attack Grill may be a fine restaurant. A burger "dripping with fat" doesn't sound appealing to me specifically, but I may certainly go for some of those fries.

The main issue, I believe, is that since we as Americans are always hearing different health reports and finding out that what we thought was healthy last week is killing us this week, there is a great satisfaction in flushing "healthiness" down the toilet for one meal. It's the same satisfaction you get as a child when finally breaking a rule that you've wanted to break for weeks, and it is inherent in our makeup as humans. We like to push the envelope.

Also, if there are no pretensions to health, the choice is clearly in the customer's hands. People choose to visit The Heart Attack Grill, and joke about how their next stop will be the emergency room as they tackle a bypass burger with a smile. Rather than crucifying The Grill, maybe we should be asking ourselves how to feel a greater communion with our bodies and how we can, instead of always feeling shackled by dietary recommendations and restrictions, WANT to imbibe healthy foods because we not only want to be healthy, but see it as an enjoyable process, rather than one that takes a toll on our spirit and tastebuds.

I say that The Heart Attack Grill should keep on serving their lard-dripping burgers, and that whether or not they get eaten is up to consumers. Obviously, there is a market for such a place. And although maybe eating an eighth of the burger would be a healthier choice, as long as people give their business to such a place, our battle shouldn't be with the Grill, it should be with ourselves.