I feel like it's gotta be one of the lower ranked places of people dying right?

Anyone displaying any signs of serious illness is gonna get sent straight to a hospital, surely. I don't imagine a restaurant owner is gonna dilly dally for business, health and liability reasons.

Or is this something I'm too European to understand? Do people die in American restaurants a lot?

Like I know it's much more likely to get food poisoning over there, but that's not insta-killing people... Do people turn down ambulances a lot?

Maybe not at the restaurant but you show me a well established (so in business for 20+ years), that isnt corporate (meaning employs skilled chefs and line cooks), in any downdown metropolitan centre of any size and i guarantee you they have had half a dozen overdoses on average and 3 overdoses at absolute minimum. Again 20 year minimum tho, idk why but those are the ones most likely to give the best employee wages at the cost of working 90hrs a week which adds to the coke followed by heroin cycle Anthony Bourdain was so famous for kicking... till he didnt...

Maybe haunted by lobsters?

I think OP might have meant like, chicken ghosts, or something, but those die in the factories that sell them, which are, for al intents and proposes, already haunted in our own world.

I would say its a common occurrence. My grandfather passed away leaving a pizza shop earlier this year. Back when I was a kid and my parents took me to church, I remember always going to IHOP, Bob Evans, or Perkins after for breakfast (don't worry, my family weren't the type to go for breakfast/brunch to yell at teenage wait staff after church) and I distinctly remember 4 occasions where a fellow diner passed away or had a serious health issue hit them while eating. Bob Evans was the one I remember most. Everything there is very high in sodium and they encourage you to add more. Fun fact: about 2/3 of Americans living with high blood pressure don't know they have it. We live with far too much stress and far too much sodium.

food poisoning perhaps.