How the Patties Stack Up : Burger joints take beef lovers’ tall orders in stride.

After bingeing all night on the Internet and sleeping till noon, 17-year-old Ryan West knew what he wanted.

He pedaled down to the nearby EZ Take Out Burger in Costa Mesa and ordered a Grand Slam, a burger so big it should come with wheels.

This burger--a bun, four patties, four slices of cheese, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions and Thousand Island dressing--bombarded Ryan’s stomach with 1,050 calories.

That’s a lot, Ryan conceded, “but it’s good, man. It’s really good. I could have one for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Gimme a couple of them.”

Vince Stanisci, the manager who cooked Ryan’s burger, said he probably sells more of the monsters than other franchises because he’s close to a high school and he has the big burgers on the menu. At most other EZ Take Outs--and at rival In-N-Out Burger--they’re not posted. But those in the know order them by name--Triple Take, Grand Slam, Three-by-Three and Four-by-Four.

“It’s a response to demand,” said Carl Van Fleet, vice president of operations at In-N-Out. “They’ve been around for years, but we don’t sell a lot of them. Comfortably under 1%, I’d say.”

McDonald’s entered the megaburger competition in summer 1995, when it introduced a four-patty Double Big Mac as a promotion, but it was off the menu within a year. It was revived as a one-month promotion earlier this year. No other major chain has given the four-patty burger a try.

Coy Young, general manager of EZ Take Out, said his father served the first burger bombs in 1969 in Upland at his first hamburger stand, near two college campuses. “Kids coming during finals and late at night would request more patties and more cheese,” Young said.

Now, both EZ Take Out and In-N-Out will make a burger to your specified dimensions. Young said that at the San Diego EZ Take Out, a sailor who had just turned 21 ordered a burger with 21 patties and 21 cheese slices. And he ate it all.

“We laid it out in a box, gave him a fork and watched him eat it. We’ve had people try since, but nobody’s done it. Five is the most I’ve ever eaten.”

Stanisci said teenage boys and “big, sturdy guys, working types” are the usual buyers. “The kids do it more on a dare, the guys on appetite. I’ve had guys, construction workers, come in and get two triples just for themselves. It’s dumbfounding. You just scratch your head and wonder why.

“The kids, they’ll sit out there just trying to get one of those things down. And you can see it’s taking its toll. When they get up, they’re walking a little slower and not smiling as much.”