It was cute when Paul Rudd did it in the movie Role Models, but a college professor who refused to conform to the chain’s much-ridiculed ordering protocol learned not to mess around when she was forcibly ejected by police from an Upper East Side franchise yesterday. Lynn Rosenthal, an English professor and self-described “stickler for correct English,” makes a habit of insisting on “small,” medium,” or “large” instead of the Starbucks-mandated “Tall,” “Grande,” or “Venti,” but yesterday’s fracas came about because of a bagel. Rosenthal ordered a multi-grain bagel, and when asked by the barista whether she wanted butter or cheese on it, Rosenthal refused to answer, telling the New York Post today: “I refused to say ‘without butter or cheese.’ When you go to Burger King, you don’t have to list the six things you don’t want.” A Starbucks employee claims Rosenthal called the barista “an a–hole,” but the real question here is: What kind of New Yorker buys her bagels at Starbucks?
