Most businesses try to live by the mantra “the customer is always right” – but it seems like that’s not the case when it comes to one particular “all you can eat” restaurant.

Making headlines this week on the BBC News site was the story of two gentlemen who liked visiting a Mongolian restaurant in Brighton. For two years, George Dalmon and Andy Miles have taken advantage of the Gobi’s £12 meal deal at least twice a month. But the BBC reported that during their last visit – when they each ate five bowls from the buffet – the manager banned them.

According to Mr Dalmon, “The owner came up and said never to come back again – we’re disgusting, and we’re eating him out of business, so we’re nothing but filthy pigs … I was quite shocked about this and I asked him if he was joking and he replied ‘No, I’m definitely not – I’ve had it with you two, that’s it’ … Obviously, we’ve paid the £12 for the buffet and it says you can have as much as you like, but apparently five bowls was over the top as far as he was concerned.”

The restaurant’s co-owner, Peter Westgate, said: “Like when the shark shuts its eyes before it feeds, they’re like that. They just get to the buffet and whatever happens they just pile it in.”

It’s hardly been a slow news week in the last seven days – and yet for a time, this was the one of most-read stories on the BBC’s site. Why? Not because two people were banned from a restaurant (for apparently following the conditions of a meal deal) – but because of the way in which they behaved and, perhaps more importantly, because of the language from the owner who banned them.

The media likes conflict, because it makes interesting reading for audiences. So when a seemingly routine interaction like someone being banned from a restaurant is associated with colourful and descriptive phrases, like the owner’s choice of “filthy pigs”, it immediately pushes up the interest levels from a journalistic viewpoint. As upset as the owner may have been, if he had politely asked the duo to leave and not return, the incident would probably never have made the BBC’s agenda. But by escalating tensions, and displaying such outrage, the owner himself has made it national news.

It’s been said that all PR is good PR – but some customers of this Mongolian restaurant may be left with a bad taste in their mouth after reading how the management reacted.