Benihana is a steakhouse that was first opened in 1964 in midtown Manhattan. The owner, Hiroaki (Rocky) Aoki, president of Benihana of Tokyo, wanted to make his restaurant different then the typical. Benihana is now known not only for their quality of food but for their creativeness of their service. Customers are seated around their own "personal" kitchen and the chef cooks their food right in front of them.
             Because of the way Benihana is set up, they are able to have much lower costs than the typical American restaurant. Not only do they have lower costs but also they take advantage of all the space possible. Twenty-two percent of the total space is used for back-of-the-house, which includes preparation areas, refrigerated storage, and office space, while the rest of the restaurant is used for dining space. By having only three types of entrees, steak, shrimp, and chicken, it helps reduce waste and can help cut the cost of food.
             The different trends in product and service design are customer satisfaction, reducing time to introduce new product, reducing time to produce product, the organization's capabilities to produce or deliver the item, environmental concerns, designing product and services that are "user friendly". Benihana has done many things to make sure these trends are part of their daily operation. Because the food is cooked right in front of the customers, they have quick turnover time. There is no question of how long it actually takes to cook the food. At a normal restaurant, it can take 20-30 minutes to get a salad when the customer knows that the salad is already made. Environmental concern is shown with their ability to reduce waste. Not only are the chefs hired for their cooking skills, they need to be entertaining and creative. When the chef is entertaining it "makes" the ambiance, which increases customer satisfaction. There is nothing worse tha
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