Well, we had a 4:45 pm reservation we had 7 of our 10 people waiting 10 mins ahead of schedule and they wouldn't seat the party until everyone had arrived. The remaining 3 people arrived at 4:48 pm. By 5:15 - 5:20 we were still waiting to be seated. We were here for a birthday celebration and I was extremely surprised that with more than 1/2 of our party and time to spare that they wouldn't seat us. We had a few small kids, a baby in a carrier, an 89 year old woman and they made us wait long afterward to be seated.
This was my first visit to Benihana and I wasn't completely impressed with the start of our visit. However, by the time we were seated things eased up a little bit. Although, interesting that no one made any mention of the hold up or the reasoning for the hold up since our table was open that entire time. Our chef was awesome! I wish I could recall his name because I actually saw him mentioned on here and was super excited when he was assigned to our table.
He did a stupendous job of impressing the kids and was very enjoyable to watch. I had the Yakisoba, the salad and the miso soup. Yes. it was amazingly good. I had bites of everyone's dish and they were all good. Really really good. I couldn't finish my entire dish so I ended up taking it home and upon reheating it, it was still very very good.
I wasn't responsible for paying the tab but from what I hear it really is expensive. So, as long as someone else is covering dinner I am totally in. HA! Seriously though, it's worth the experience even if it isn't a regular occurrence.