Benihana — Restaurant in Springdale

I am not normally one to comment on restaurant service, being that I am a server myself and can understand when people may have had a bad day or aren’t in a great mood. However, my boyfriend and I ate at Benihana last night and it was by far the worst service/experience I’ve ever had. We got there at 5:30 and were shortly sat at 5:45. Our “chef” didn’t arrive to our table until 7:00. When he finally did arrive the first comment he made to the table was that the staff had asked him to work a double and his response was “yeah I’m not doing that. I just got here”. That comment alone put a bad taste in my mouth right off the rip. As he was cooking our food he seemed as if he really didn’t know what he was doing the entire time. Frantically looking around for things, no sense of urgency in cooking the food even though we had been waiting an hour and a half for him to arrive and greet us. It wasn't until 7:45 that I finally got my chicken on my plate. We had watched the table next to ours order their food, watch the chef cook their food and eat their food, long before our “chef” was completely done cooking the rice. And that is no exaggeration. Honestly every table but ours seemed to be having a good time. The whole reason people go to hibachi restaurants like Benihana is for the great food and great table side manners as well as the culinary entertainment. The “chef” assigned to our table didn’t even try to attempt any of that. There were no tricks or food tossing or any of the fun and entertaining activities performed by him. The whole night just consisted of when and if our food would ever be cooked. I was on the fence the whole time about just walking out and going elsewhere. By the time all our food was cooked It was 8:00 and at that point I just wanted to leave and go home so we got boxes and did just that. My boyfriend ordered steak, and was seat #2. He was the last person to get his protein on his plate and the chef says “oh man my bad I accidentally cooked your steak well done” while putting it on his plate. The lack of care, respect to customers and respect to his job was mind blowing. If it weren’t for the gift card we had, we 1000% would have had an issue paying $120 for food that took nearly 2 and half hours to make and service that was highly disappointing and honestly, awful. This experience really ruined hibachi and culinary entertainment for me. Hope this review reaches the right person so things...

As a family of many generations, we have been eating at this establishment since the late 70's. We've enjoyed every experience and continued to go back for every birthday celebration as we would do celebrate quarterly birthdays. As the family grew, we would go on Sunday afternoons to reserve a few tables in one room as it was never busy. We were considerate of the staff. We celebrated my grandson's 3rd birthday and my son's birthday in August 2018. We asked our grandson who turned 7 this month where he wanted to go celebrate with his Uncle and he said the place where they made food in front of us and sang to me. I made a reservation for 5:45 for 8 people for Saturday, August 20, 2022. It's been 4 yrs since our last visit. Covid, cancer, kids in sports etc., kept us from going. We arrived at 5:30 told them we were all present we were early but were going to get drinks in the bar. Finally, after seeing people with no reservations walk in (large groups) get seated, about 6:15 I asked how soon we would be seated, and the response we got was we asked the server to get a table for you. Finally, 6:30 we were seated, she took our drink orders and my grandson gave her the certificate he received by email for the Kids birthday club and she rudely gave it back and said we only celebrate birthdays Monday - Thursday and gave the certificate back. It was for a free kids mug with the purchase of a kids meal. The look on his face was sad, he looked at me and said they don't want to celebrate my birthday? I thought it could had been handled better for a child. That's just the beginning, things have changed there since our last visit, no refills for water, never saw the server, the Chef never interacted with us, like before. The food was good, however the service was not what it used to be. The prices have increased but the service didn't. When she brought the bill, my husband said can I add a tip, she said let me bring you the receipt, there was a service charge and we asked what the service charge was the server said you have 8 on one ticket and it's for the chef. So we tipped 30% and only to find out the service charge was the tip they added on. So, they got a 110% tip and believe me, it was not worth it. I will never return only because the service and experience isn't what I remember as a kid, and I can't get past the look on my grandson's face after she gave him back his certificate for...

This place was actually gross for a restaurant. let’s start here, we arrived at 8:10 they did not even start making our food until 2 HOURS LATER. we did not even end up getting out of the building until almost 10:30-11 I have never in my life been to a restaurant that takes 2 hours to even start to prepare my food. absolutely ridiculous. Now let’s talk about the cleanliness of this restaurant. The toilet is completely rusted and has literal mold on it and around it. the vents… looked like they have not been dusted or whipped down in who knows how long. There was toilet paper all over the floor, does anyone even check on the state of the bathrooms throughout the day? I have been to Gas stations that have cleaner bathrooms than this RESTAURANT. This is simple hygiene to keep a bathroom clean even if it’s not perfect, but this is just flat out disgusting. If the bathrooms look like this, I don’t even want to know what else looks like this that, that the customers are not able to see and could possibly be around our food and ect. I believe the health department should definitely check out this restaurant to make sure it is sanitary because what I have seen, it absolutely is not. The walls of the restaurant had paint that was coming off of them and looked like water damage.. WHICH CAN CAUSE MOLD and just is not appealing to the eye for how expensive this place is. Also let’s add it that it was FREEZING COLD. Everyone in my party and I were shivering the whole entire time and had to even run out to our cars to grab WINTER jackets because it was that horrible and even the workers agreed that it was freezing. The bar tender even mentioned to us that the thermostat said it was 50° in the restaurant. I could not even try and enjoy my meal because it was so cold. I went to the reviews after my experience and see so many people saying similar things about the temperature and how food took hours... and the restaurant ( owner ) under all the reviews apologies BUT obviously nothing is being done to fix these problems that are most definitely fixable!!! Do not apologize to consumers if you’re going to continue to leave the restaurant in the condition is in and not do a single this to try and make it better. overall, I don’t understand how this restaurant is still open in the condition it was in and we paid $160 for our meal and this horrible gross experience. again $160!!!!!!!!!!...