| rev:text
| - My family and I have been going to Benihana for about 5 years now. We've always had to wait at least a half an hour to be seated, even when we've had reservations. In the past its been forgivable, mostly because its close to home for us, the food is okay (albeit a little pricey), and my Grandmother absolutely loves the entertainment of hibachi. But that all changed last night when we went out with a party of 8 for my and my mothers birthday.
I made reservations two weeks in advance for our birthday dinner. When I called they were almost totally booked and only had a few spots left that evening. Our reservations were for 7:30.
We arrive a little early at 7:20 and I let the hostess know that we are there and she checks us in. Then we basically just wait and wait and wait. We notice the hostess turning people away, and we notice two tables who have been seated for about 30 minutes now haven't even gotten their soups or salads. By now its nearly 8 O'clock. Then my mother overhears the hostess telling someone that they are short staffed and the wait is going to be extremely long. By this point we've been waiting for 45 minutes. My sister takes a walk through the restaurant and notices there is only 1 hibachi chef working, but there are SEVEN tables seated, all waiting for food/drinks. So I ask the hostess how much longer before we are seated. She informs me that it will be at least another half an hour before we get a table, because two hibachi chefs and two kitchen chefs called off sick. It would be another hour after were seated before they would even start taking our food orders.
This is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. First of all, the hostess should have informed us when we arrived that they were short staffed and we would have a very very long wait. OR, the manager should have phoned people with reservations and asked if they could reschedule. Either way, we should have been informed instead of letting us stand in the lobby for an hour, not knowing that it would be another hour and a half before we would actually eat, on an evening when we had reservations.
We decided to call Ichiban to see if they could accommodate us. They told us we could walk right in and be seated immediately. As we were leaving we ran into a gentleman who was outside smoking who told us that his party had reservations for 6:30 and they still had not ordered their food! It was now about 8:20pm.
Our first dinner at Ichiban actually turned out to be much better than our previous dinners at Benihana, so I don't think we'll ever be going back there. I think Ichiban will be our new hibachi restaurant of choice.
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