Sorry, but I have to ding this place 2 stars for lousy guest relations and service from the waiter on behalf of all at my table.
I arrived at the Benihana desk to inquire about dinner for 1. The lady behind the desk offered me the sushi bar (separate restaurant area) or the Asian restaurant. I knew that there was plenty of room at Benihana and replied that I came to eat at Benihana. I was given a pager and told it would be 15 minutes. Ok. Fine.
I was out front waiting for several minutes when the pager went off and I was seated at a table that already had 4 people at it. Ok. Fine. How long had they been there? Long enough to already have water.
Our waiter spoke broken English and was hard to understand. Worked through that and ordered a drink. Eventually ordered dinner.
We had a great chef who talked with us about his sharp knife, how long he had worked there and let it slip that management wasn't having the waiters tip the chefs as part of their payout anymore. If you know anything about tipping in a Japanese restaurant or sushi place, you know that it is customary to tip higher because the chef needs to be tipped. Not here. The wait staff keeps the tips, yet all they actually do is bring you drinks and the appetizers from the back. The chef does most of the work.
Easy to fix. Tip the chef in cash and reduce the tip to the wait staff accordingly. As I told the chef, two can play at this game. Now I am letting everyone know what they actually do. This is worse than pooling tips and dividing them up to everyone including lazy staff.
As I said, the chef was great and the food was excellent.
Now, about our waiter. Two people asked for more water. They got 7 up or some similar lemon lime soda instead. It had bubbles, the customer said it was sweet and it definitely wasn't water.
Yes I would go back, but it won't be because of the front desk or wait staff.