There is a famous Harvard Business Review case study that is commonly used for MBA classes on Operational and Process Design called Benihana of Tokyo. I’m sorry it’s behind a paywall but here’s the link https://store.hbr.org/product/benihana-of-tokyo/673057 and I will reference bits of it here.

Basically Hiroaki (Rocky) Aoki opened the first Benihana in 1964 and it was a huge success. Most of what you see today in American hibachi culture is a copy/evolution of that model. I think you need to understand the operational design of Benihana to understand why it was successful and why so many restaurants chose to copy it.

The case study and accompanying lessons typically focus on how restaurants are chaotic production systems… people come in mostly in a huge wave a dinner hour, different size tables, different length of stay / duration, wait staff relay customer communication to the chef for preparation, menus require dozens of dishes to be prepared to unique specifications, wastage is significant, margins are low, etc. It’s a NIGHTMARE if you think about it as a production system that you need to solve for. But the design of a Benihana was brilliant in mitigating so many of these issues:

  • Pacing: tables are for 8, require reservation, and you will not be sat until the chef is nearly ready (i.e. instead of when the table comes open from the prior guests). And when your meal is finished, the chef leaves, and the other guests you’ve been grouped with also start to leaving, creating the hint that you should move along too rather than occupying a large table for longer.
  • Batching: tables are always for 8, groups of 2-4 will be combined into an 8-top. This makes every chef’s preparation time at a table more consistent. They’ll move through the same sequence of rice, veggies, proteins… regardless of what is ordered, chefs generally spend a predictable amount of time at each table. Also, if you are early (or your table simply isn’t ready) you sit in the bar… being greeted by a sushi station and bar (extremely high margin). Don’t forget how exotic sushi and an “umbrella drink” would have been in the 1960’s. Even the drinks were high-margin: fruit juice mixed with rail-quality spirits, yet you can charge a fortune because it came in a coconut (again, you have to put yourself in the 1960-70’s a bit as this is common today).
  • Standardization of Product: when you break it all down… hibachi restaurants serve steak, chicken, and shrimp. Three simple proteins for the chef to get intimately familiar - helping to eliminate waste from incorrect cooking. They dress these up in different combinations, with different sauces and sides… but in the end you have three simple proteins that take just a few minutes to cook, all using the same surface. This also helps customers make their choices faster, while disguising the simplicity of the menu to your customer. Furthermore, restaurant managers buy in bulk… three proteins, rice, onions, eggs, zucchini, soy… that’s 90% of your product purchase, in a few simple bulk items. And finally, such a short list allows inventory and stocking simplicity.
  • No Kitchen: the kitchen is a prep space only, more room for seating and dining.
  • Throughput: a simple menu, where you eliminate the in/out timing variability of clients arriving / seated time / departure, simple menu… it’s a job shop. And don’t forget there’s less wastage when the chef can get immediate feedback on an item. No, I ordered shrimp or can I actually get that well-done? No wait staff middle-man who may delay or miss the customer request.
  • American-friendly cuisine dressed up as exotic: it’s steak, chicken, shrimp, rice, and American vegetables like onions and zucchini. Yet it feels like a trip to the Pacific, and can be priced as such. The chef cooks in front of you, an unheard of pleasure - and he’s also the entertainment! This allows premium pricing, at basically no extra cost, for basically every-day ingredients that Americans already like and are familiar with and a chef you had on salary anyway.

Simply put, Benihana solved almost all the major issues of a traditional restaurant, making it highly profitable AND an exotic, popular destination for their clients. Of course successful restaurateurs would copy this model… and it’s been simplified into fast-food and cook-at-home variations as the style remained popular for so long. But it all began with Rocky Aoki, possibly the most brilliant restaurant owner in history.