Eat at Your Own Risk
To say the Heart Attack Grill gets you off on the wrong foot is putting it mildly. They insist everyone wear a stupid hospital gown (“But what if I don’t want to?” “We really must insist that you do sir.”), refuse to give you change for a buck so you can feed the parking meters so you can eat there (“Everything here is rounded off to the dollar, sir; no one has any change.”), and then, as if to add insult to injury, play incessant 70’s music (“Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soi”) throughout your meal.
Fat people though, seem to love it. Really fat people adore it.
The place has a cheesy, slapdash, thrown together vibe which will play just fine with the slack-jawed, Weehawker hordes and Ma and Pa Kettle types who call Fremont Street home, but which may strike fans of Smashburger, Five Guys or In-N-Out as gimmicky and cheap.
They don’t ask you how you like your burger — medium to medium well seems to be how they pre-make them — and the supposedly “hot” nurses are the types who look a lot better through beer goggles.*
Still, the place is not without its charms — the most striking of which are the French fries – cooked in lard and in a class by themselves as far as fast food fries are concerned.
The burgers are big and the buns fresh. The bacon they pile on is of good quality and even the tomato was redder and juicier than we expected this time of year. (No lettuce is offered because that would be “healthy”… get it?)
The old fashioned Coca-Colas use real cane sugar, but the butterfat shake (It comes with a pat of butter on top…get it?), substitutes thickness for taste, and mistakes excessive creaminess for proper, milkshake mouth feel. In-N-Out’s vanilla shake kicks its myocardial infarction ass.
Bottom line: What you get at HAG is a good, big, fast food burger — much better than anything at the larger chains, but lacking the juicy beefiness of a better burger. Whether you enjoy eating it amongst such ridiculous surroundings will depend on 1) how drunk you are; 2) how fat you are; or, 3) how you feel about Gloria Gaynor and Kiki Dee.**
Our meal for two came to $28 and we left a $4 tip for our change-less, insistent “nurse.”
HEART ATTACK GRILL
450 Fremont Street
Las Vegas, NV 89101
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* These things are matters of personal taste, of course (and most of the gals were plenty cute), but be assured, as this place wears on, the hotness of the help will steadily decline. Exhibit #1: Hooters.
** ELV had enough of 70s music in the 70s.
Restaurant reviews, quips, picks and pans-with some seriously salivating history-from the man who eats his way through Sin City every day.
November 7th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
So…you’re saying the decent burgers on Fremont street are still at Binions and El Cortez cafes… or haven’t you tried those?
November 7th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
The burger at Binion’s used to be good. The place has gone so far to seed I wouldn’t eat a bag of chips from there.
November 7th, 2011 at 5:50 pm
It’s “ce soir”, you goose. And if they insist that I look like a poorly dressed invalid while shaming myself, then I insist on sticking with Smashburger.
November 7th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
The single with bacon looks great. The fries in lard was robbed from Arthur Bryants in KC. The best anywhere. I will visit for a munch in May.
November 7th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
LOL at everyone staring at that fat guy on the scale.
November 8th, 2011 at 5:47 am
I’m all in favor of indulgent eating from time to time, but there are limits, and HAG crosses them. As for Binion’s, even though the coffee shop is closed and replaced with the “cafe” on the casino floor, the burgers there, not to mention the bags of chips, are well above the threshold of what I’m willing to eat. In fact, even though the place is far from chic and the hotel is still closed, what amenities they provide are as good a shape as they’ve been in the last decade. Admittedly, it’s a low bar, you could do a lot worse downtown.
Generally, though, I’ve become more and more skittish of eating ground beef where I don’t have some faith on the provenance of the meat in question. I’m game if folks ground it in house, but these days the pre-ground beef anywhere scares the living piss out of me.
November 8th, 2011 at 6:37 am
Plaintiffs’ lawyers are probably circling the place 24/7 in taxis waiting for the first fatso to drop. Its a slam dunk case in this town now famous for $60 steaks and $500MM punitive damage awards.
A horrible concept no matter how good the food.
Bet Max is a fan.
November 11th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
So bad! The whole experience from food to service. Fries were so soggy, overcooked and under seasoned. Burger was average but dry and lacked sauce (mistake?). Milksake was just plain gross. Food porn should be over the top indulgent through quality, not just quantity. This place was all gimmick and all of the stipulations (mandatory smocks, cash only, only bottled coke and bottled water, dealing with the overly cheesy and poorly exicuted theme) made the whole experience as unpleasant as their food. Anyone serious about food need not eat there.