Yamato Japanese Steakhouse — Restaurant in Virginia

I've been wanting to go here for quite some time but the location is awkward and if you miss the turn...oh boy. Also it's a small parking lot,so it's filled quickly. Hibachi is my favorite and Benihana is hard to beat in my opinion. Their service, experience and food quality is unmatched,so are the drinks. I did give Yamato a fair shake but think went down hill VERY quickly. I get there a couple in front of me was told 35 min wait. I spoke as they were leaving they advised of the wait. I went in saw the bar and was determined to try it. So with also being to 35 mins wait, I saw the bar. I asked if they served there, she said no but I could get a drink. I told the couple as they were leaving,so they ended up staying as well. Bar didn't have alot to chose from but I was able to order toki,so I was ok with that. Their sake was also good. Another group comes in get this with 5 ppl and their wait is 15 mins yep 15 mins. We are still waiting, so I'm not sure how a larger party with 5 ppl coming in after us gets a shorter wait. Unless it because they will seat with us. What's funny is even though myself and the other party were there first, the group of 5 never really waited AND they were seated FIRST yep...now that I will never understand. The hostess didn't check to see if we were done with our drinks, I'f we were ready to come in for dinner NOTHING just swooped them off. I see this and walk over, she then says our table is ready. Such bs!! NO they didn't have a reservation REMEMBER, they did like us,how long is the wait...yep theirs was 15 mins.just walking in. Cool,I let it ride and just continue to enjoy the night. We are ordering and I ask for lemonade and am quickly advised, you don't get free refills. I'm like ok,thanks, I guess. Everyone looked away awkwardly. So I know it wasn't just me. Further, we order, chef does a few dry tricks and jokes. We get the food. It's OK and NO it wasn't worth the wait. I did ask for my meat to be cooked well but the vegetables not. All in all the people at my table were cool. The bathroom was clean and NOPE I won't go...

It's my husband's birthday today. We decide to splurge and I take him, my parents and the 3 kids out for dinner to celebrate. We had a 7:15pm reservation and arrive a little early, around 7:10pm. We wait, and watch a large party that didn't have a reservation who arrived at 7pm get seated in front of us. Okay, fine, wait happens. We can deal. However, we don't get seated until 7:45pm. Apparently, they are short staffed in the chef department. Then, we wait and wait some more. 20 more minutes later we get our old salads. 20 more minutes after that we get dishwater soup. No busing of the table has happened since we were seated 40 miutes ago and the glasses and plates are pilling up. All of this waiting has also given us ample time to see and feel how filthy this restaurant is. Shoes are sticking to the floor which is carpet (ew), the menus are beyond grimy and sticky, a smell of natural gas, mildew and artificial freshner (presumably to cover the smell of filth) fills the air etc. We genuinely considered leaving at that point when i went to speak to the manager, who's English was limited at best, said a few more minutes, and sorry. The wait was bad enough, but the almost complete lack of service during rhe LONG wait was ridiculous. Once the poor, over worked chef shoes up, he looks exhausted. His performance as a hibachi chef was the most lackluster I have ever witnessed anywhere. The chef also glopped gross brown sauce on all the meat he cooked. So much so, my daughtef found the steak inedible. No, it wasn't soy sauce, it was goopy and thick a flavorless. I have eaten in hibachi restaurants dozens of times over the past 30 years and, hands down, this is the only negative experience i have ever had. In fact, I've eaten at this particular restaurant 3 times over the past 2 years and never had an issues other than a longer than expected wait time and less than ideal cleanliness. However, after this experience, i will NEVER patronize this restaurant...

If I could give zero stars I would. Our reason for going out on this particular evening was for a birthday celebration. On our arrival I told the hostess we would have 4 people in our party. We were waiting on1 person and it would be about 10 minutes before she would arrive. They sat us down at a hibachi table. The gentleman came right over and asked us if he can get us drinks. Within a minute or two he was back with the drinks which was great but he asked us if we are ready to place our order. I politely told him that we were waiting on one other person and that she would be arriving in about 10 minutes. About five minutes later he comes back over and assess if we had decided on what we wanted to order. Again I told him we were waiting on someone else. He asked me if I could text the person and find out what they wanted to order because he was ready to start the hibachi table. Again I politely told him I was not going to text somebody what they wanted to have to eat and that I had already told the hostess that it was going to be about 10 minutes before our additional person arrived before we were seated. He got agitated and said that if we were not going to place our orders we were going to have to leave the hibachi table and go sit at the bar in the front. After leaving the hibachi table and going to sit at the bar we were greeted by a child playing behind the bar. The whole dinner the child was running around the restaurant. So not only did we not get the hibachi experience that we came int for but, it was not enjoyable by having a child running around. To make matters worse it took over an hour to get our meal as one person behind the sushi bar made our sushi orders when we finally did get our sushi it took an additional 15 minutes before the hibachi order arrived at the bar. All in all it was over an hour wait to get our food. Food was so so I've had much better sushi at many other restaurants. I will never return to...