[Deathwatch] Hiroaki (Rocky) Aoki, Benihana founder, 69

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Again, all credit to Brad Saul for this submission.

Rocky Aoki, founder of Benihana eateries
INTRODUCED MANY IN U.S. TO JAPANESE CUISINE
By Elaine Louie


NEW YORK - Rocky Aoki, who founded the theatrical Benihana chain of
steakhouses, where Japanese chefs with flashing knives double as
performers, died Thursday night in Manhattan. He was 69.

The cause was pneumonia, said Nancy Bauer, a spokeswoman for the
family.

In 1964, when Aoki opened his first Benihana steakhouse in Manhattan,
he introduced New Yorkers to dining as theater, and chefs as culinary
acrobats. Seated around a flat steel grill, customers watched chefs
sharpen their knives, toss them in the air, drizzle the grill with oil,
sizzle the chicken, shrimp or steak on the grill, and flip the food
onto the plates. Children stared goggle-eyed.

Benihana's style of food is called teppanyaki. Eating there is "equal
parts restaurant, magic show and performance art," said David Rockwell,
the founder of the Rockwell Group, a Manhattan architecture firm that
has designed more than 75 restaurants. "It was way ahead of its time."

Aoki also introduced many Americans to Japanese food. "He was the first
one who made it accessible for non-Japanese people to enjoy the
Japanese experience," said Drew Nieporent, whose Myriad Restaurant
Group runs a number of restaurants. "The key thing was he made it fun,"
he said.

Before Benihana opened, most Japanese restaurants in New York were
styled only for the Japanese population, Nieporent said. Aoki changed
the environment.

Hiroaki Aoki was born Oct. 9, 1938. From an early age, he was familiar
with the restaurant life; his parents owned a coffee shop, which later
became a full-service restaurant, according to the Benihana Web site.

Aoki came to the United States from Japan when he was 19, and several
years later he opened the first restaurant with $10,000 he had earned
selling ice cream out of a truck. Within seven years, he had expanded
his empire to 15 restaurants.

Aoki resigned from the company in 1998 after learning that he was under
investigation for insider trading. The next year, he pleaded guilty to
charges that he had used an illegal tip to buy stock in Spectrum
Information Technologies when he heard that John Sculley, then the
chairman of Apple, was negotiating to join the company. Aoki sold the
shares after the appointment was announced, making hundreds of
thousands of dollars. He was fined $500,000 and given three months'
probation.

Aoki was as theatrical as his restaurants, and enjoyed "flirting with
death," as Rockwell put it. He raced boats and flew in hot-air
balloons. In July 1979, he raced a 38-foot Cougar catamaran in his own
race, the $50,000 Benihana Grand Prix offshore powerboat race near
Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., and won. Later that summer, in San
Francisco Bay, he had a near-fatal accident on a 38-foot powerboat.
During a test run at 70 miles an hour, the boat lost dived into a wave.
Aoki suffered a ruptured aorta, a lacerated liver and a leg broken in
four places, according to an article in the New York Times.

In September 1982, he was piloting a 35-foot Active Marine racer in the
Kiekhaefer St. Augustine Classic in Florida. He suffered leg injuries
when the boat, going 80 miles an hour, hit a swell and shattered.

His love life was as tumultuous as his racing. He had six children by
two women, and two of his children, Steven, a son of his first wife,
Chizuru Kobayashi, and Echo, a daughter of Pamela Hilburger, who was
his mistress while he was married to Kobayashi and later became his
second wife, are the same age. Bauer, the spokeswoman, said Aoki's
third wife, Keiko Ono Aoki, survives him, along with all of his
children, who include Grace, known as Kana; Kevin; Kyle and Devon.

Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary