Benihana — Restaurant in Alpharetta

From beginning to end, unacceptable. This was to celebrate a Birthday, and the Birthday honores choose the restaurant. We had reservation for 6:30pm on a Sun evening...arrived with party of 7. Dining room not that crowded...several tables seated b4 us. Finally at 7:20pm we were seated. Said one of the grills had stopped working, so "behind".... Dishes were piled up all over the entire spanse of tables at the grill which was broken...not sure why they hadnt cleared top! Our table (the wood section) was sticky and very worn. Waitress finally came to our table, and we got drink orders about 10 min later...handled out napkins with chopsticks tucked inside...said forks "would be coming" soon~ they are ALL in the dishwaaher?? (How does a half empty restaurant run out of forks?) Soup served....at least they had spoons! It was hot and good. Then salad delivered with ginger dressing...worst Japanese Ginger dressing I've ever tasted...sharp, sour, tangy taste...never had ginger dressing like it....yuck! Then some appetizers served. They were ok...Tempura average at best. Sushi was good according to those that ordered it. Then finally a chef came out...mind you this was like almost 8pm by now. He did his little "performance" that they do, was predictable but he tried hard. Then the platters of food came out to be cooked.... The shrimp and steak were cooked well...Chicken was dry and both Lobster and Scallops cooked at too high of heat and for too long! Rubbery scallops and dried out lobster. Fried rice was ok, but still doesnt hold a candle to less "known" Japanese restaurants in the area. Veggies again, ok but minimal portion for a table of 7! The Yum Yum sauce was standard but the teriaki/ginger was again very sharp/tangy and undippable, not the typical flavored ginger dipping sauce. They finally brought out the sherbert at the end...(can't mess up sherbert I guess!) Then there were the bathrooms. Several of the guests, (including myself) used the facilities while we were there, and they truly looked like they hadnt been cleaned in weeks. There was a layer if grime/dirt sealed by a layer of dust on all bathroom services. No toilet paper in either of the dispensers in the stall and when I looked on the other side there was a med sized roll precariously balancing on the handicapped bar, half of the roll "damp"....so it must have fallen down at some point. TRULY, no one had checked the bathroom that night much less CLEANED it in several weeks.. this was not just one days worth of grime! All in all NOT what we expected from a name like Bennihana...this was in the Milton, GA location. I...

Update Dec/2024 Nelson is still there and is the best chef. The food is delicious and seasoned just right. I recommend him because he’s funny and gives you a great show. Trinity our server was amazing. She was tentative to our needs and friendly. Ryan at the bar was holding it down while people waited for their tables. The drinks were excellent. Hats off to the new manager. As you can see from my previous post (4years ago) we have been going to Benihanas for Christmas dinner for years. Open table always over books so we usually wait 2 hours for a table with a reservation and an hour before our chef comes to our table. This year both waits were cut in half. They did not take walk ins this year and they had more chefs than usual. The minor changes have made a big difference. There aren’t too many restaurant options open for Christmas so you definitely need to expect to wait. It’s worth the wait to me. See you next year Benihanas 😊

Original post-3 stars: Nelson our chef was awesome! Our server, Stacey, was not so good. I feel like she judged us and assumed we weren’t going to tip well so she gave mediocre service. She was already not wanting us to sit in her area because she threatened to give up our table if all of our guests didn’t arrive within 10 minutes after our 9p reservation. Our table was dirty and needed to be wiped. Thankfully a nearby busboy heard our complaints and apologized and cleaned our table. Again, Nelson was one of the best chefs we’ve had in awhile. He had a great sense of humor. The food was excellent. Our waitress failed to offer us our ice cream. We were confused when we asked and she said it didn’t come with our meals. We come to Benihana’s often and I always order a Splash and Meadow. Every time I’m offered ice cream. I was wondering if my past servers were just being nice. Then I looked at the menu and realized it does come with our meals. Our waitress realized once we brought it to her attention. Then she seemed annoyed about getting the ice cream. I felt like she was ready for us to just go. I don’t know what we did to cause her frustration before we even opened our mouth. I hate using the race card but I do have to wonder if she has an issue with us being black. I can’t figure out anything else we did. Either way, we love Benihana’s and will definitely return. I know the server has to share nearly 10% of their tip with the chef. In this case I wanted the opposite. I wanted 10% to go to the waitress and 90% to go to the chef. We are big tippers and the waitress needed to learn to not make assumptions about people. I hope Benihana’s honored...

The Valentine's Day Dinner from Hell

I should have known that it was going to be a bad day when I got there and was awaiting to be seated. My reservations was made 30+ days prior but I had to wait 30 minutes. The reason was, other people were late for their 7:45 reservations and they were being seated before me, even though, I was already at the restaurant and I was waiting. These people were just coming into the restaurant but was being seated.

After a huge group came in and was seated, I and my partner were beginning to feel some type of way. She went back to find out what just happened and that's how we were informed of the late arrivals being seated before us.

Was seated by Will the waiter, he too was very aweful. He took our drink and food orders. He brought the drinks back in cracked glasses. We as the customer had to inform him of the situation. Getting lemon slices for my water and tea/lemonade was like asking him to go grow the tree.

Soup & salad came a whole hour and a half after being seated. This was getting ridiculous, sitting here all this time and no Chef to cook for us. I requested the manager at this point and that turned out to be an even more worse idea. Oscar, the manager on duty was very INACTIVE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF THE BENIHANA TEAM ON VALENTINE'S NIGHT. EXCUSES ARE UNACCEPTABLE ESPECIALLY WHEN THIS IS A YEARLY CELEBRATION.

We FINALLY got a cook 9:45+ because of my wifey going to find Oscar hiding in the back of the kitchen. He refused to face her, so she grabbed a chef and escorted him to our table.

Chef E was not prepared but HE' MADE IT DO WHAT IT DO'. His service to the table was OUTSTANDING considering he did not have enough rice, vegetables, or meat for 8 people that were waiting.

Drink refills? What is that? Will the Waiter, he never understood what his role was at our table. His presence was obsolete. Oh but its 11 and you wanna bring theBill's?

WE ALL HAVE A PROBLEMWITH PAYING A BILL FOR THE SERVICEWE NEVER RECEIVED? OSCAR REFUSED TO MAKE ANY AMENDS, JUST EXCUSES. HE SAID HE DIDN'T HAVE TO STAND AT OUR TABLE AND LISTEN TO OUR COMPLAINTS AND WALKED OFF??? THE WRONG WAY TO HANDLE DISGRUNTLED CUSTOMERS THAT RESULTED FROM THE LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM FROM THE ALPHARETTA BENIHANA STAFF.

MY 1ST TIME VISITING THIS ESTABLISHMENT AND IT MOST DEFINITELY IS THE LAST TIME I WILL GO TO...