What Is Benihana Concept Essay Example

an investment of ~ $ 30,000 in 1964, from a humble 40-seat unit opened in midtown Manhattan, Benihana had grown to a chain of 15 units across the country that grossed over $ 12 million per year by 1972.Further if we refer to the Exhibit 1 the profit of 55 to 65% was incredible.

- The key to this was the way the operations was handled such as eliminating the conventional kitchen with Hibachi table arrangement which had brought the down to 10 to 12% of the total gross sales and also helped in increasing the production areas due allowing more space meaning more sitting capacity, more revenue. - Keeping the menu limited resulting in reduction of waste thus bringing the food cost to 30% to 35% of food sales. At the early stage identifying the importance of bigger bar/lounge holdings led to increase in sales and the margin was higher as compared to food. Customer: At Benihana the food, preparation and atmosphere was given the prime importance which are the three key ingredients to Customer satisfaction in the Restaurant business. This is clearly depicted from the survey result in Exhibit 4 61% of the people visit Benihana for Pleasure and nearly 70% of the people voted Food, service and Atmosphere as excellent and people from all income level visited Benihana.Employee: Success of any organization depends on how happy are its employee and this was exactly what we observed in Benihana.

Employees were treated as part of family and along with top priority given to the well being of its employees and that was one of the reasons why annual turnover of people was really

low. There are certain areas where Benihana need to work in order to grow at a same rate in future - Implementation of Corporate Goverence model. Look out for resources within US or other parts of the world rather than constraining to Japan. - Look at the options of getting interiors purchased from US, rather than importing them from Japan. - Have a strategy in place on how to go about making JV’s in other part of the world.

Question 3: Prepare an operating statement for the Chicago restaurant based on the operating information in the case. Assumption: Food cost of 30% includes both food and beverage cost and the break up is 70/30 [pic][pic]