Mental Health

Heart Attack Grill's Daily Customer Dies From Heart Attack

By Isabel Alface | Update Date: Feb 13, 2013 12:46 AM EST

A daily customer and unofficial spokesman for the "Heart Attack Grill" suffered a heart attack after leaving the burger joint and died on Monday after being on life support for a week, reports the Las Vegas Sun.

John Alleman, 52, had a massive heart attack last week while waiting at a bus stop near the restaurant and was kept alive for nearly a week. The Heart Attack Grill, whose tagline is "taste ... worth dying for," plays up its image as a gluttonous burger joint, bound to put customers in a food coma.

Owner John Basso said: "He never missed a day, even Christmas. I told him, 'If you keep eating like this, it will kill you'."

Alleman, a 180-pound security guard, spent most of his free time standing outside the medical-themed burger joint in a hospital gown, coaxing patrons to come inside for a bite, Basso said.

The restaurant, whose slogan is "a burger to die for", has had other problems with the health of customers. Two people were hospitalized in 2012 after eating there.

A caricature of Alleman's face, identifying him as "Patient John," appeared on the grill's menu, which offers extravagantly caloric options like the "Quadruple Bypass Burger," ''Flatliner" fries cooked in lard and butterfat milkshakes.

On its Facebook page, the restaurant writes that "John was such a part of the HAG family. It's hard to look at our menu today without getting teary eyed."

The Heart Attack Grill, a hamburger joint founded in 2005, prides itself on serving "nutritional pornography," or food "so bad for you it's shocking." 

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