In October, I got a text from a close friend here in New York City: “Hello friends, I have made a reservation at Benihana in Midtown. Please come.” My ultracool, somewhat younger friend wanted to spend her 29th birthday at the epicenter of American chain restaurant kitsch. And the thing is — she was the fourth of my friends to plan their birthday celebration at Rocky Aoki’s teppanyaki spot in 2025. One of them made a reservation a month in advance because Benihana had been booked 100 times that day on OpenTable. Upon arriving at the restaurant, the tables upstairs and the waiting area downstairs were absolutely packed. It made me wonder: Is Benihana... back?

They say that whatever is old will become new again. But in an era when our attention spans are down to about 50 seconds, how is the 60-year-old teppanyaki (commonly mistaken for hibachi) chain gaining traction? I spoke to industry experts and visitors to find out.

‘Fun food and a show’

A number of things set Benihana and its business model apart from other restaurants (more on that later), but one distinction is driving a renewed interest: entertainment. When I asked my birthday-celebrating friend why she wanted to go to Benihana, she said that it was a place for “fun food and a show. I’m an earnest lover of tricks.” Apparently, in a post-pandemic world, more people are learning to love shows and tricks as she does. And Benihana has them in spades. The shrimp flip! The flaming rice heart! The onion volcano.

Cheap tricks? Maybe. But they’re enough to elevate Benihana from an eatery to an experience, Georgetown University professor of operations and global supply chains Ricardo Ernst tells me. “When you go to a restaurant, there are three things you go for: You’re hungry. It’s a way to be social. But the third thing that Benihana offers that not many other restaurants provide is entertainment while eating,” he says. “The new world is paying for experiences.”

Consumer appetite has driven a growing number of restaurants to lean into creating novel, curated dining experiences, rather than just serving excellent food.

Benihana on the big (and small) screen

The founder of Benihana, the late Rocky Aoki, is, as the Ringer put it, probably worthy of his own biopic. His was an old-school story of an immigrant fulfilling the American dream: His parents survived the firebombing of Tokyo during World War II before he immigrated to the U.S., where Aoki was a collegiate, and then amateur professional, wrestler who saved up enough money from odd jobs to open his first Benihana in midtown Manhattan in 1964.

It, along with the ones that followed — there are 79 locations now — became a hot spot for celebrity sightings. Aoki himself achieved a certain celebrity status, even after his death in 2008 (see: a posthumous portrayal in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street). The restaurant was featured in an episode of The Office (“A Benihana Christmas”) and mentioned in songs by both the Beastie Boys and Childish Gambino. Yahoo film critic Brett Arnold spotted mentions of Benihana in three movies he watched in just one week in 2025 (Benihana says that these mentions were not product placement).

Over the course of its storied, 60-plus-year existence, Benihana has found its way into the cultural ether — and managed to stay there. To some extent, the renewed interest in its dinner-and-a-show is driven by the experiential famine of the COVID-19 pandemic, says Ernst. People missed gathering, being part of a crowd and being entertained by something other than a screen.

But screens may also be a boon for the experience economy boom in general and Benihana in particular — especially among young adults, Ernst believes. “This generation likes to post pictures of anything and everything they do,” he says. “Would you rather take a picture of the food that was delivered to you, or of this: ‘I’m having a great time at Benihana with my friends?’ This is part of the social media pressure, and it’s working” for the restaurant chain, he says. And it’s by design. In a statement, Benihana and the One Group CEO Manny Hilario said that the company is “investing in digital marketing, social media and influencer partnerships to reach younger audiences who discover restaurants online.”

Indeed, Alejandro Torres got the idea to celebrate his 34th birthday at Benihana after seeing the restaurant on Instagram and TikTok. “It’s a whole experience; the volcano with the fire with the onions caught my attention,” he says.

As for my friend whose birthday I celebrated there, she couldn’t specifically remember seeing Benihana’s social posts but suspected they’d reached her somehow anyway. “I’m chronically online and my subconscious is easily influenced,” she says. “Vibewise, I’m sure that I’m consuming the same content that led all the other sheep to Benihana.”

The nostalgia factor

When I asked a second friend who had planned to spend her birthday at Benihana (we had to cancel, unfortunately) why she chose it, she answered in one decisive word: “Nostalgia!”

That familiar feeling, as Hilario told me, “plays a huge role” in the brand’s appeal. Specifically, the restaurant’s strongest client sector is made up of families, millennials and people seeking experiential dining. Benihana is especially popular among millennial parents “who grew up celebrating birthdays at Benihana and now bring their own families in to create the same memories,” Hilario says.

Torres doesn’t have children and didn’t go to Benihana when he was a kid, but he finds the restaurant more appealing than he might have a few years ago. A squarely millennial adult at age 34, Torres loves the corny jokes that Benihana chefs make and adds, “I value that type of environment more, where I can celebrate certain days and just feel good, hang out and have a laugh.”

Big business for Benihana

The nostalgia, the cultural capital, the social media campaigns and the original, unique business model of Benihana have all paid off big for the chain and its new owners as of 2024, the One Group. According to Hilario, Benihana saw a 63% increase in average sales per individual restaurant between 2018 and 2024.

Some factors in its success haven’t changed. For example, Benihana’s communal tables with a chef performance allow it to control exactly when people begin and finish their meals. That predictability is a recipe for success that few in the restaurant industry can replicate, according to Ernst. “From an operations standpoint, the model is close to magic,” he says. “You can control every operation in the supply chain,” which helps keep costs low and the experience streamlined. That’s worked so well that there is a Harvard Business Review case study on Benihana, which is taught in many business schools. Ernst himself cocreated a Benihana simulator, which he says is one of Harvard’s bestsellers among business study tools.

A trip to Benihana ($39 per person) is a lot more affordable than concerts, sporting events and other experiences, making it a fairly accessible outing. “People want to go out — especially the younger generations, because very few are into cooking — and they have a limited budget, so what’s the best return for the money?” says Ernst. At Benihana, he says, it’s “food of a reasonable quality, a show, a good time — there you go.”