Benihana — Restaurant in Coral Gables

This was the first time in this location and from the very beginning it was not a good experience. We usually go to the Miramar location for our birthday celebration and they always accommodate us to sit together but this time they couldn’t and therefore we chose the Coral Gables location instead of Coral Springs location which was one of our options. First off, we made reservations for 7:30pm to arrive and be told that no one put us on the reservation list when we called. We had to wait to be seated at 8:30pm. There wasn’t enough chairs for our party at the table so we had to walk to a table where the guests had already left and brought two extra chairs to our table. The server Jaidyn was nice but his service wasn’t too good. You had to repeat every time he came around the table what you had previously asked for (Ex: new napkin since I used mine to wipe my chair that was dirty with some liquid, my new drink since the ice tea tasted like just water with food coloring). He took a long time to bring the new drink which was a lemonade. Then he served us the soup and then the salad and we hasn’t even met our chef yet. After waiting at our table for an hour, we finally saw Jaidyn and complained that we have been sitting for an hour and the chef hasn’t even passed by to start cooking. After waiting so far 2 hours, we were already upset and was not happy with the service at all. The chef finally came to start cooking after 9pm to then cook each item separately so by the time we started eating our food it was cold. He cooked each item separately ( once the chicken was done cooking and he served it on the plate, then he started cooking the steak and so forth). I also had to ask the chef to ask his manager that was walking around to get us refills, white rice for the kids and kiddie chop sticks. There was no birthday picture taken as the restaurant usually does ( I don’t know if they stopped that). We ended up leaving the restaurant a little after 11pm which made it 3hours and a half to just have dinner. The manager nor Jaidyn never at this point, I don’t think the manager knows about the whole inconvenience. We just wanted to eat our cold food and leave. It was truly exhausting. I do not recommend the Coral Gables location to anyone. This location is not organized and the service is not what...

I don’t usually feel compelled to write an overall negative review but my experience today was genuinely extremely disappointing. We weren’t greeted upon arrival; no one was at the door. We waited around 5 minutes until one of the chefs-which was actively cooking, might I add- came up to us and asked if there was anyone at the hostess stand. When we said no, he went to find her. Once we got sat, we waited around 10 minutes for our drinks, mind you, one of us ordered a beer, and the restaurant was EMPTY. As if that wasn’t the worst part, almost an hour later we get sat with a family of 6. I understand there is more than one family per table with hibachi, but after almost an hour of waiting, being sat with an entire family of six is ridiculous. As expected, we waited another hour. We didn’t end up getting served until 2 hours after we arrived. We didn’t get our salads until the family arrived and they got THEIR salads. Additionally, one might think we would be prioritized given we’d been there an hour and a half before the family that came after us, but no. The family of six (which was extremely picky and was making the chef do extra work) got their chicken before us and because of it, our chicken was dry. He didn’t bother asking us how we wanted the chicken. If I wouldn’t have spoken up, we would’ve probably been the last the get our chicken. By the time we got full plates, we didn’t even want to eat there. We got plates to go and asked for the check. Again, the restaurant was EMPTY. We had to wait an unacceptable amount of time for the check and even the family at our table was complaining for the check. I had to get up, go to the bar, and ask for the check. Once I got the bar, the hostess, was on her phone texting, and honestly, if she worked for me, I’d fire her. The experience for not worth our hard earned money, especially in this economy. Do better. The competition in Miami is BIG. I am never coming here again. Ps. Once I got home, to finally eat the food I paid for, I realize the sauces I asked for weren’t packed. Extremely...

I just went last week at 4:25pm and it was atrocious. Absolutely no customer service!!!! The hostess wasn’t even at the front, we waited 15 mins for her to finally show up not sat say a word, not even a welcome to Benihana. She just looked at us and I had to say hello a table for two. She responded “You have a reservation” I replied “No” she then said we you’re gonna have to wait at least 15 minutes. To which I answered can we just sit a a regular table. Her non-professional response was I have to see if there is a server as I literally see at least eight servers just hanging out in the back in full view. Ok, you might think that was it, NOT!!! We sit ourselves then get a server you ask us what we want to eat. Mind you we haven’t even been given menus yet. We finally order, a minutes later a party of three sit in the behind us. A few minutes after that I see them eating as we are still waiting for our food. I see one person eating exactly what I ordered and the other person mentioning what my sister ordered. I then ask the server how much longer for our food. She finally admits she gave our food order to the table behind us so they had to make our food again. Go figure, an hour later we are still waiting. We asked to speak to the Manager Roger Perez. After waiting as long as it took to get our food to speak to him he finally showed up heard everything I had to saw, apologized, comped our food and said he would send us a $60 credit to return which we never received. The entire experience was awful. We even witnessed people at the bar waiting to order and no bartender in sight. The bartender finally arrived with two Starbucks drinks and a pastry while people were waiting for him. The entire staff and location is a unprofessional free for all. Will never go there again. Go at your...