Benihana — Restaurant in Bloomington

Came here for a family dinner on August 19th. 7 adults and 8 children. Called ahead and made reservations. But when it came time to seat us, they placed our parties in two separate rooms at two separate tables. We still tried our best to enjoy the family get together dinner apart. However, the service at our table, completely ruined our experience. Initially our server was very friendly , engaging and had a lot of recommendations off the menu. We eagerly excepted his recommendations, order some appetizers for the kids prior to their meals, along with some drinks. At this point any, and all expectations of a great evening were crushed. The water was brought late to the table, lemons that we requested on our initial order took 30min to come. The appetizers that we ordered for our children never appeared. And this was never followed up with by a waiter as he rarely, if ever came to check on us. When the chef and meals finally showed up, we had to ask the chef to go find a spoons, water. As we were completing our meal, I had to ask him to cancel the apps. And all he said was “oh yeah sure no problem”. But this is not even the worst part of his abysmal service. I’d order a bottle of sake off the menu, and it clearly states on the menu that it is a bottle only. When he brought it, it was in a glass. It perplexed me, but again I attributed it to his horrible service , and foolishly thought he was just going to bring me the bottle later. After finishing my glass and most of my meal when he came back on one of his rare trips to see if everything was OK, I politely asked him where the rest of my sake was. he looked at me in confusion and said “that’s what you ordered”. I politely told him I ordered the bottle, and this is where he started getting very defensive and arrogant. He pulled out his device from the restaurant and showed me that there was a glass and a bottle option and he thought I wanted the glass. And then proceeded to tell me “if there was a problem, you should’ve told me earlier not drank it“.” I can’t do anything about it now, you already drank it “. I very politely told him to please humor me and bring me a copy of the menu. He brought the menu over and then disappeared again for five minutes and I had to flag them down to return. When I did, I politely showed him the only option on the menu was a bottle, I explained to him that I did not work at Benihana, and this is where he continued to proceed to argue with me saying that that’s what he thought I wanted. He then proceeded to bring me a whole bottle of the sake and put it in front of me, and told me “ “here it is, here’s the bottle of sake”.He said he could not do anything about it and if he wanted to he could ask the manager to come over. At this point, I was fuming and politely asked him to please send the manager over. The manager came over, and I explained the situation, I explained about the terrible service, the complete lack of any care by the server, the lack of follow up during the whole meal, the fact that we had to ask the hibachi chef for spoons and forks, etc. But the worst thing was the absolute blatant disregard for proper customer service by our server. Long story short, I basically told her to return the bottle of sake as my meal was over and I would not be drinking it, all she did was comp the glass of sake, did not apologize for the lack of appetizers that were ordered to the start of the meal almost 2 hours prior, she apologized on behalf of the server stating That this was not like him. But no other attempts were made to defuse the situation and make it better. She simply closed the tab herself, did not allow the server to come and apologize or take any responsibility for his abysmal service or terrible attitude. With customer service like this, I would never ever visit this establishment, or any other Benihana again. And this was my first time there, what a terrible precedent to set. Tips are included so there is no onus to work for it. We have the chef $20 cash as...

We were coming to benihana to celebrate valentines day. We live 45 minutes away in regular weather. Our reservation was at 615 pm we called at 602 pm we called and told them we were running late from the storm. and again at 615 and said they're was a 6 car pile up we knew we could get they're at 630. The person who's name at did not get, told us as long as we made it by 640 we were good. Otherwise we were going to cancel and free up the table and stay home. We walked in at 638 pm. We were rudely told by the manager that we needed to sit at the patio but it would all be the same food. I have frequently visited benihana, and sat there, so I didn't need the hibachi experience. As long as the food was the same that was fine. We were greeted by a very angry server who was not helpful at all. She took our orders and the first pieces of the food came out. . We didn't have forks or chopsticks. We had to look for someone to get those. We understand it's valentines day, so that's OK. We get our food, none of the usual sauces. We also didn't get the drink my fiancee ordered. Chris jumped to action and made sure we had the drink. Our food came out ice cold! $98 wagyu and lobster ice cold no sauce, no forks. Mt hibachi chicken was freezing and dry. We were never cheeked on. We have to get up from our cold food to ask for those. Waitress doesn't check on us still. She walked past us i said excuse me could we get our sauces? She runs off and only grabs yum yum she had someone else drop it off. So now the food is even more cold, but we are starving and need to go to our show. Before I continue to eat, I ask for the manager to tell him about my experience and show him my food. I had taken 3 bites. Told him how disappointed we were, but that we were hungry and needed to go. He did offer to remake the food, but at this point we were out of time and frankly patience. I politely declined. He proceeded to have a bad attitude with me and told me it wasn't his issue we were late. I asked to speak to his manager and he was happy to inform me the general manage was there. So that's perfect in my opinion. Because you would expect some courtesy or apologies. He walked up and said I'm not comping your food. Not a single thing implied we wanted our food comped. We ate the cold food because we were hungry and had to go. We wanted to tell him about our experience and how we were treated. I told him I'm not looking for a comp I was looking for an apology. He said why would I apologies to you about your mistake for being late? I told him why would your staff say it's ok have us drive all this way, and it's not OK? To which he replied did you ask to speak to a manager? Why would I need to speak to a manager, when the person who answered the phone said it's ok? He said we'll I made a 10 minute rule, i also took 98% off the calls today so you are lying., OK so why didn't you tell us that? We showed him our call log that we called twice, I guess we were the two percent?He said what do you want me to do here, i said for one speak to me like you care about my business, speak to me like a professional. How are you a gm and acting this way? He doubled down on he's not comping us.. again, never asked for a comp. Maybe because we are people of color he assumed that? He said i won't comp eaten food, I didn't ask you to comp me. I said your other manager offered to remake it and we don't have time and we were starving, at wanted you to know about our experience. He stood up and said and I quote. Whoa whoa whoa, my manager would never do that abs flew off the handle so bad, when he realized the other guests heard him. He said I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm sorry I did that. I said he's right therre call him over here now. He said I don't have to do anything. So my fiancee said sir we don't have time for you to remake it. Then he realized that he misheard me , i said see you came over here with such a terrible attitude what kind of...

TL;DR - Server tried to significantly overcharge us but our Hibachi Chef was really fun!

I debated leaving a review after our last visit to Benihana but ultimately decided against it as I figured it was just a one off situation but our last visit proved it was not.

We were sat at our Hibachi table and our server took our drink orders. A few minutes later they returned with waters for everyone and our orders were taken at that time. After a while only one person at our table had received their drink and when I checked my watch, it had been 26 minutes since we sat down. A few minutes later a different server brought some of our drinks, I ordered a spicy margarita. Not only was this the smallest margarita I have ever seen in my life (think beefy shot glass filled with ice), it was the worst margarita I have ever had so I sent it back and ordered a beer instead. By the time our hibachi chef came out around 45 minutes into our reservation, two people at our table still had not received their drinks. When our chef began to cook, he confirmed orders with our table. Mine was not correctly entered which made me nervous as myself and one other person at our table have dietary restrictions. Luckily, our chef was accommodating and understanding, and corrected the several mistakes that were made.

After we finished our dinner, several people at our table inquired about dessert as they had ordered the six course meal which comes with ice cream, and they never received it. When it came time to pay the bill, over half of them were incorrect. Ours in particular had two margaritas on it and I asked our server to remove one of them as I sent mine back. They argued and said that my partner had ordered one and I explained that there were two on there, not one. After some back and forth they reluctantly apologized and removed it. When we got our second bill, I noticed that the meal that was on our tab was still the incorrect meal and was $14 dollars more expensive than the one that I ordered. I told the server it was the incorrect meal and they tried to tell me three times that it was the same price as the one I ordered until I finally said that I did not appreciate them lying to me and to please go correct the bill, which they did.

I was willing to overlook the poor service because I understand people can get busy but after they attempted to charge us an additional $32, I wanted to leave this review so others are aware. I think the experience of Benihana is fun and our Hibachi Chef, Lucas, was cool, but it is VERY expensive for what you get, and I believe that the server tried to overcharge us because there is an automatic 20% added to the bill, which is not well advertised by the way.

Additionally, it was incredibly loud and quite dirty, including the bathrooms, dinner...