The Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas is a medical-themed restaurant that boasts a “diet program” guaranteed to provide “steady upward weight gain.”  Serving a menu item recognized by Guinness World Records as the Most Caloric Burger, as well as serving burgers aptly named the single bypass burger up to the quadruple bypass burger, it is clear that the Heart Attack Grill can deliver on its promise.  For people weighing over 350 pounds, the Heart Attack Grill offers free meals.

Visitors to the restaurant have shared their experiences on Yelp, posting photos of the milkshakes with chunks of brownies and butter and noting that they even offer butter to drink.  Keeping with their unhealthy tongue-in-cheek persona, the Heart Attack Grill also has a spanking policy.  If people do not finish their meals, a nurse will spank them.  The website also “prescribes” alcohol and cigarettes as being good for customers seeking to gain weight and have a heart attack.

Recently, Jon Basso, the founder and owner of Heart Attack Grill, appeared on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.”  Basso states that he is unapologetically presenting restaurant food for what it is.  His food is high-calorie and unhealthy and he believes that is not unique in the restaurant world.  Basso believes that even a restaurant that claims to be healthy is killing people.  He advocates for restaurants to be more honest about what they are offering and what they are putting into people’s bodies.  Moreover, he thinks that the best course is one of moderation in which people actually cook their own food at home.

The interview became controversial when Basso held up a bag of cremated remains on live television, stating that it was the remains of a customer that had died in his restaurant, reports Time.  Basso, trying to drive home the point that such gluttonous food does in fact kill, takes the interview on a grim path.  This is not the first time a customer has died from eating his food.  Previously, two spokespeople for the Heart Attack Grill have died of heart attacks along with other customers.  With a 10,000-calorie burger on offer, it is no surprise that his food is killing people.

Basso claims that he hopes to wake up one day and people have in fact gotten the message.  He hopes that his restaurant is empty and people are eating at home.  The interviewer did not buy his sales pitch, criticizing what appears to be a joke from Basso and a lack of responsibility for actually killing customers.  Basso relies on his honesty about his offerings to absolve himself of responsibility.