SOUTHGATE (WWJ) - If you build it, they will eat! Mallie’s Sports Bar and Grill in Southgate wants to beat its own World Record for the largest commercially-available burger, hoping to tip the scales Thursday at 350 pounds as cameras roll for the Travel Channel show “Food Paradise.”

Restaurant owner Steve Mallie said they have to bake the burger because it’s too big to cook any other way.

“It takes 20 hours to cook the hamburger. In the cooking process, you know, we lose some of the weight because the fat cooks off, but we’re getting pretty good at this. We’ve made a couple dozen, so I can usually guess within 10 pounds up or down. We should be 340 to 350 pounds,” Mallie said.

The restaurant holds the current Guinness World Record for the largest commercially-available burger at 319 pounds.

“If you figure, the average hamburger that we serve is a half-pound hamburger, going by that ratio, yeah, you could serve, you know, 700 people if you go a half-pound per person,” Mallie said.

The restaurant has been featured on several TV shows before and Mallie said the exposure is bringing in out-of-towners and celebrities.

“There’s a lot of people who are foodies that watch the TV food programs and when they go on vacation, they kind of plan around some of these places and go check them out. We’ve had people from out of the country. We’ve had people from Vegas, California, Florida, all over.”

Mallie also said he counts Chris Chelios and several Detroit Tigers among their regular celebrity diners.

Filming for the show will run for most of the day Thursday, and the public is invited to attend.  Mallie’s is on Northline near I-75 in Southgate.