Benihana — Restaurant in Pennsauken Township

I eat out (solo & in groups) often & this one of the worst experiences I’ve had in along time! If you only care about food quality & not customer service than by all means visit, I however will NOT be back. The customer service was bad from start to finish. When I first walked in, there were 3 people behind the hostess booth -the host & 2 servers. I wasn’t immediately acknowledged by any of them, they continued their conversation. Even after the 2 servers walked away, the hostess turned around but kept his head down. When he finally acknowledged my presence I asked to be seated for 1, he said ok but didn’t move. He then started looking across the bar area to where the 2 servers were. He tried getting their attention, & they clearly were ignoring him. He then walked over to them & I watched them bicker from across the room. In my head I questioned if for reason they didn’t want to serve me. I stood there looking around awkwardly. When a guy behind the bar noticed, he called to the host to have me seated. The host responded saying something to the affect of having to make others work. (He confirmed my thought) He finally seats me, one of the two servers comes over & I tell her I have a birthday certificate to use & she says “I don’t know how that works” & just looks at me. So I asked if she would like to take it & get clarity, she said yes & took my drink order. She brought the drink back but never said anything about the certificate. I put in an order for apps -sushi & dumplings. In the next 20 minutes two more couples were sat at my table. Within another 15 minutes they were bringing out soup & salad for everyone. So I asked if my apps would be coming out soon & was told yes. One of the servers came back with a sushi app for the second couple to be seated after me. I didn’t get my appetizers for nearly 45 minutes after ordering, when the chef was already at our table.. The servers never returned to remove empty plates, replenish drinks, or ask if anything was needed.. I ended up not eating much of my entree when it was done. But because the servers never came over, I walked up to the hotess booth, & there both servers were again laughing with the host. I asked for a to go box & a check. The check was brought over without deduction of the certificate. When mentioned, the server responded “Oh yeah it’s in my pocket.” By the time she returned with the correct check, my card was already in my hand to pay, but she dropped the check and kept going. I went up to the hostess booth again, asking if I could pay up there. I was told a manger had to take the payment, which I thought would be good to express my concerns. When the manager came over I asked if tips were split between servers and chefs & he said yes. I began telling him I would like to tip the chef but that I wasn’t happy with the servers. & The “manager” cut me off saying that I would have to tip the chef directly & it would need to be in cash. He turned back to the POS system without asking WHY I was dissatisfied. I signed my check without tipping & left.. Customer service here is absolutely terrible from management on down, the lack of care shows and it’s unfair to paying guests. I’d also like to mention that the restaurant wasn’t very busy on this Thursday (11/30) evening. When I arrived there were only 2 other tables sat, & by the time I left 1 more. Making at total of 4 in the 2 hours I was there. Danielle is the name on my check, not sure which one she was of the two but they were equally unpleasant or accommodating. Really wish I knew the managers name, but he was an average height black man with...

I have been going to this particular Benihana for almost 50 years. It was always one of my favorites until now. Actually it has gone downhill in the last 10 years. We had a 5:00 reservation and got seated right away. We were the first table filled. We were there to celebrate mine & my 2 year old grandson’s birthday. We placed our order right away and then proceeded to wait & wait for the appetizers, soup & salad to come. The chef started to cook for us about an hour after we arrived. He seemed new & not quite ready to “chef” on his own. He dropped his spatula when he tried to twirl it on his finger & dropped it on the floor a couple times. He burnt most everything and literally had my filet mignon on the grill first and then cooked all the veggies & shrimp & rice. Then everyone else’s meal. I requested my filet to be medium well. It was cooked for about an hour. It tasted like leather. The filet I was always use to at this establishment would melt in my mouth. The shrimp appetizer used to be 4 shrimp. Tonight each shrimp was cut into thirds & we got 4 pieces. They were also swimming in butter. The fried rice was somewhat burnt but it was still good. The zucchini was good but the onions were burnt & black. My daughter-in-laws chicken was dry. My 2 year old grandson became disruptive after finishing our meal at 7:45, 2 hours & 45 minutes after we arrived. Our waitress was not around most of the time. Our dishes piled up on the table & we had to request the chef get our waitress a couple of times. After waiting so long for food we asked her if she could get us some chicken fingers for our grandson. She said they make it from scratch so she could give it to us in a to go bag! We told her never mind. That was an entire hour before we left. I can’t believe they could not make chicken tenders before that. I asked for ice cream for my birthday. It took almost a half hour for the waitress to bring it out. She then gave it to the wrong person. She did bring me a half of scoop of chocolate icecream 5 mins later. The most alarming thing was the bill. There were 4 adults & one 2 year old. The bill was $245 plus tip. That included a $30 birthday reward. I can say this will be the last time in 50 years I will visit the establishment. The management has changed so much that they have lost a...

I have now come to Benihana twice, the first time i had a very lovely and nice experience but this time around I went with my girlfriend for dinner, in a good mood; we get there and we get seated next to this beautiful black family on our left and these two also black ladies on our right, me and my girl are puertorrican and turkish; the lady that sat us down takes our order and leaves. In comes who is gonna be our waitress Cayla and brings in sushi (mind you we order sushi but we are ignorant to how the sushi be looking cause we dont eat much of it) she puts it next to us and we start going to town on it. Then comes our cook he starts cooking for us, everything is going alright except me and my girls drink hasnt been brought yet, yet everyone elses had theirs. Mind you i just golfed down some sushi so naturally im thirsty, so i stopped our waitress and ask her about our drinks and verbatim she says with attitude “the drinks will be done when the bartender gives it to me” okay girl whatever. The drinks show up not even 4 mins afterwards. Later on she comes around and ask everyone except us if they needed something… okay cool cool i see whats going on, then she comes and says really loudly to the big family next to us “sir i think they ate your sushi, ill put your order in right now” but she says it as if it was our fault that she place sushi beside us (like i said we ordered some) so you’re telling me their sushi came out but ours never did and you gave it to us but now its my fault, okay ma’m. We finish the meal our cook prepared for us which mind you DELICIOUS, and it was time for them to come and take our plates away, so miss Cayla goes ahead and takes everyones plates but ours, walks away and maybe comes back 5 mins later and then takes ours, but again everything is being done with attitude, then when its time to pay she goes for US first. Cayla you may have some biased opinions about us or maybe you’re just upright homophobic but you need to treat people better cause honey we didn’t do absolutely anything to you, and i gave you that big tip so you learn some kindness. It takes nothing to be kind, you dont know what people are going through; i went in to Benihana in a good mood and you completely took that away from me. Do better, and have...