"Ooof, it 's hard to give this place a rating this low when it seems like the employees are trying so hard to make things work for management that doesn 't provide proper leadership. We were visiting family on vacation celebrating my sister going away to college when specifically asked if we were in celebrating anything, this is what we told our server. We had our orders taken and didn 't see anyone again until our hibachi chef came out. We had to let him know that we had yet to receive any soup or salad. He made sure to let someone know but, went ahead and started cooking anyway. When the salads finally came out, none of them had dressing on them and they needed to be collected and brought back out again later on. The show was lackluster at best. You could easily tell that no employee there was in good spirits and our chef was the same. He cracked a few jokes in the beginning but eventually became silent as he went through the motions. There was no flipping eggs into hats, catching shrimp in our mouths, or onion volcanoes to keep the the fun going. We did get an onion volcano as a very last effort right before leaving the table...which seems to be a waste of food but hey, that 's not why I 'm here. The cart prepper had also not properly prepped the meal cart and we had wrong items on the grill. This caused the chef to have to stop and find out what was going on while Half the table that had scallops watched as they became severely overcooked. We were barely into our meals when our server asked about dessert. We all said that we needed more time as we just started to dig in but, he was adamant that he needed to put it in now. Half the table ordered and the other half was firm about needing more time and he said he 'd come back. He didn 't. The next time we saw him was when he was delivering dessert... which he had gone ahead and chosen a flavor of ice cream for those who didn 't order. His effort seemed genuine so, I don 't fault him. There was no celebration or even a congrats about the college thing. The conversation with the manager quickly put into perspective why the staff was miserable. They explained how they were short staffed and that everyone was stretched thin. Servers are only supposed to have one table at a time but were being given two. We 've been in a state of understaffed establishments for months now. Most of us that choose to go to a restaurant understand staffing issues and are willing to wait in order to have the experience we 're paying for. Why on earth would you be stretching your employees thin rather than putting people on a false wait to pace tables more accurately and allow for everyone person who goes in there to have the experience that Benihana is known for?? She was willing to give us coupons.. saying if we ever decide to come back to ask for her And she 'll make sure we have a better experience but, seeing as we were on vacation...not really feasible. Truly a disappointing experience and as someone who has worked in the serving industry, I feel awful for the employees dealing with managers that care more about getting people through the door than providing high quality service and food."
