The Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Arizona, dresses its waitresses in "naughty nurse" costumes, and advertises menu items such as Bypass Burgers and Flatliner Fries as a "Taste Worth Dying For."

The Arizona State Board of Nursing and the Center For Nursing Advocacy, based in Baltimore. Maryland, see nothing worthwhile at the Grill. Their anger isn't directed at the deadly food, but at the mini-skirted nurses.

"The 'naughty nurse' isn't going to save your life when you need her to," writes Sandy Summers, executive director of the Center, in a press release dated October 26, 2006. Summers concedes that "patrons likely realize Grill waitresses are not real nurses" but contends that public depictions of nurses as sex objects contribute to a world-wide nursing shortage, which is "killing thousands if not millions."

Owner John Basso, feeling the heat from Arizona's attorney general's office, offered to rename his waitresses "nurses*" (with an asterisk), but failed to satisfy his critics. The Grill remains open, however, and its "nurses" continue to bend over customers with stethoscopes, and to push them to the parking lot in a wheelchair when they've had too many Bypass Burgers.

More info and a menu at heartattackgrill.com.

February 10, 2012

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