Cashing In On Controversy

Aside from maintaining a website, Jon Basso hasn't spent one dollar on advertising. And yet his restaurant has garnered international attention thanks to the controversy he's created. "We purposely try to generate controversy, there's no question about that," Basso says. After all, with menu items like the Quadruple Bypass Burger and Flatliner Fries, who needs marketing?

Yet even Basso, owner of Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Arizona, agrees with his health-inclined critics on one point: Because of his 8,000-calorie burgers and french fries cooked in lard, the 40-stool burger joint isn't a place customers should frequent daily. "I tell everybody, 'Don't come here every day of the week; it'll kill you,'" he says.

For Basso, who also goes by "Dr. Jon, chief surgeon," what began as a marketing thesis has turned into a diner with a world-wide reputation. Though he started out operating a chain of personal fitness training studios, Basso heard so much talk from clients about what they did on their "diet cheat days" he decided the Heart Attack Grill he wrote about in his thesis could be the ultimate place to go for a dose of gluttony.  

The controversial grill, which claims on its website to offer "taste worth dying for," officially opened its doors in January 2006--and it didn't take long for public debate to begin. Basso figured people would speak out against the ingredients in his burgers or the items on his menu--including filter-free cigarettes and beer--but was surprised when the biggest source of contention became the way his waitresses, or "nurses" as he calls them, dressed. The grill drew criticism from the Arizona Board of Nursing and the Center for Nursing Advocacy for putting the female-only "nurses"--the males are called doctors--in naughty nurse uniforms, saying they degraded the profession and that the restaurant shouldn't be allowed to use the title "nurse."

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