NYC’s newest dining despot

Exiled patrons tell of UWS cafe tyrant

No seat for you! Move over, Soup Nazi. New Yorkers are now cowering under the gaze of “Belligerent Bennie,” the unpredictable owner of popular Edgar’s Cafe on the Upper West Side, named after the great American poet Edgar Allan Poe.

Some are even saying, “Nevermore!” to the petulant proprietor — real name Joseph DiBenedetto, according to public records — after he allegedly chased and banned customers who dared to dine elsewhere.

Allen Sisk, 72, a regular at the Amsterdam Avenue cafe for six years, says he got the heave-ho last week after Bennie found out Sisk recently ate two doors down at the Italian restaurant Scarlatto.

Sisk told The Post that he was innocently eyeing desserts at Edgar’s counter when Bennie said, “Why don’t you go next door?”

When Sisk replied, “Really?” Bennie said, “I don’t want you here.”

A stunned Sisk asked, “You don’t want my business?” and Benny demanded Sisk leave and pointed toward Scarlatto.

“I walked out and left. I felt a little humiliated,” Sisk recalled. “The waitress came over and begged me to stay and ignore him. I won’t be going back.”

“This has never happened before in my life,” said Sisk, a retired industrial engineer born and raised in mild Missouri. “I’d like to think I’m cordial and polite. In Missouri we’re taught that way . . . I’ve been in New York for 39 years.”

Ironically, Sisk is also a customer of another famously brutish city restaurateur — Al Yeganeh, the eccentric

soup maker whose brusque manner and strict rules for ordering served as inspiration for the Soup Nazi character on “Seinfeld” (above).

“I was accepted there!” Sisk said of Yeganeh’s place.

When Sisk posted his Edgar’s horror story last week on the Nextdoor app, others shared similar tales of Bennie going ballistic.

One regular, who has known Bennie for many years, claimed the owner erupted after she kindly inquired why her party had been waiting to order for 50 minutes.

“Bennie started screaming at me (really screaming loudly) in front of all the patrons,” she wrote on Google. “My partner who was sitting outside came in to see what the ruckus was. Then Bennie says in such a nasty way ‘I SEE YOU BOTH GO EAT AT THE RESTAURANT NEXT DOOR SCARLATTO.’ Then he repeats ‘I SEE YOU EAT THERE!’ Does he punish customers who go to Scarlatto? I think he’s lost his marbles.”

A Morningside Heights woman wrote on Nextdoor that “on a super hot day this summer before I sat down, pondered aloud if there was any air conditioning (there was not, just fans), and he basically kicked me out!” Bennie bristled at the claims. Responding to Sisk, he snarled: “He’s full of s--t. He should be ashamed to come back.”

Bennie told The Post that he has run a beloved neighborhood business for nearly 40 years. Edgar’s has

177 reviews on Yelp, with the average rating 3 out of 5 stars.

Fans gushed about the spinachand-cheese pesto ravioli and the homemade tiramisu (“stuff that makes life worth living”).

One Nextdoor poster said, “the owner has always been wonderfully kind to us and has made us feel welcome.”

Referring to his ban on computers and his $5 minimum, Bennie said: “If you come to Edgar’s you have to follow the rules.

“It’s my place. I can do whatever I want.”

First New York had the Soup Nazi. Now another eatery owner may unseat the ‘Seinfeld’ soup maker as Gotham’s grumpiest

restaurateur.