Loeb's NY-Style Attitude

Merrick and I met for lunch in Farragut last week, and decided on Loeb's, a NY-style deli. My old supervisor used to take me there when I was interning at the Gettysburg Foundation several summers ago, and I remember liking it - who can screw up a BLT anyway?

Right, so Merrick had leftovers from her homemade dinner the night before, but she wanted to get chips and a drink. As I was paying for my BLT, the cashier looked at her (in line behind me) and said, "I appreciate that you are buying chips and a soda, but I cannot allow you to eat another restaurant's food in my restaurant." I think that we just were stunned, mainly because we had planned on eating in Farragut Square Park, but also because Merrick was a paying customer. Otherwise, she would have said something. We promptly left after explaining, but I won't be back. It was a decent BLT, but not worth the rudeness.

We're just going to assume that it was the Little Man Syndrome, because the restaurant had many more empty tables than filled, and Merrick had her food in a nice takeout container. I understand that bringing outside food to another establishment is not okay, but he made several assumptions about us and was a gigantic ass.

Maybe he'd had a bad day, or to many people had brought in food that day and we were the last straw. Are we just overreacting? Were we in the wrong, or does that guy need to chill? Or, was his attitude just the "NY-style" part in "NY-style deli?"