Within the late Seventies, Rocky Aoki’s life seemed like a film he was directing himself. The Japanese-born wrestler turned restaurateur had constructed Benihana into one of many hottest eating experiences in America, the place cooks juggled knives and turned onions into steaming volcanoes for celebrities like Muhammad Ali and Sean Connery. Off the clock, he lived even louder: racing speedboats at 80 miles an hour, setting ballooning data throughout the Pacific, enjoying backgammon for 1000’s a degree, and partying till daybreak with medicine and girls who weren’t at all times his spouse.
Then got here the crash — actually. In 1979, his boat disintegrated in San Francisco Bay, practically killing him. When he awakened in a hospital mattress, his spouse was on one aspect, his mistress on the opposite, and the empire he had constructed was about to fracture into the sort of household feud that might final lengthy after his demise.
What adopted was a long time of lawsuits, betrayals, and courtroom battles that left his kids, together with future famous person DJ Steve Aoki and mannequin/actress Devon Aoki, preventing their stepmother for management of a $50 million fortune and a hibachi restaurant empire.
Early Life and Wrestling Roots
Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki was born in Tokyo in 1938 to Yunosuke and Katsu Aoki. His father was a vaudevillian performer and restaurateur who based a small café named Benihana after recognizing a single crimson safflower within the wreckage of postwar Tokyo.
Rocky tried music first, beginning a band referred to as Rowdy Sounds, however athletics proved his true path. He excelled in karate, monitor and subject, and particularly wrestling. Expelled from Keio College for preventing, he nonetheless certified for Japan’s 1960 Olympic wrestling staff, although he in the end didn’t compete.
A scholarship introduced him to the US, the place he wrestled at Springfield School and later CW Publish on Lengthy Island. From 1962 to 1964, he gained three straight U.S. nationwide AAU flyweight championships. To help himself, he drove an ice cream truck in Harlem, taping newspaper clippings of his wrestling victories to the aspect to discourage thieves. The $10,000 he earned in a single summer time grew to become the seed cash for his first restaurant.
The Beginning of Benihana
In 1964, at simply 25 years outdated, Aoki opened the primary Benihana on West 56th Road in Manhattan. The tiny four-table restaurant launched teppanyaki eating to America, however with a twist: the cooks did not simply cook dinner, they carried out. They juggled knives, cracked jokes, and despatched shrimp flying into their hats.
At first, the place struggled. Then a rave evaluation within the New York Herald Tribune turned it right into a sensation. Quickly, everybody from celebrities to curious New Yorkers needed in. By 1972, Benihana had practically 20 areas and was bringing in $12 million a yr — the equal of round $93 million right now.
Rocky leaned into the theater of all of it. His father had urged him to emphasise showmanship, and it labored. Diners got here not only for steak and shrimp, however for onion volcanoes and a spectacle that felt half dinner, half Broadway.
Playboy Entrepreneur
Success within the kitchen gave Rocky license to play in every single place else. He raced powerboats, created the Benihana Grand Prix, and even set a world report in 1981 as a part of the primary hot-air balloon flight throughout the Pacific. He opened a flashy Manhattan nightclub referred to as Genesis, launched a males’s journal of the identical title, and partied like a rock star.
He additionally grew to become a grasp of low cost publicity stunts. He posed in scorching tubs inside stretch limousines, cameoed on “Hawaii 5-O,” and as soon as drove a stretch Volkswagen Beetle throughout the nation. He performed high-stakes backgammon, frolicked with celebrities, and cultivated a flamboyant picture that stored his title — and the Benihana model — within the headlines.
However the life-style had penalties. His 1979 boating accident practically killed him and left him with lasting well being issues, together with Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion. His private life was no much less turbulent: seven kids with three completely different girls, a number of marriages and affairs, and fixed stress between wives, mistresses, and offspring.
Insider Buying and selling and the Benihana Belief
By the late Nineties, Rocky’s urge for food for threat spilled from speedboats into the inventory market. In 1999, he pleaded responsible to insider buying and selling after paying $10,000 for a tip about Spectrum Data Applied sciences. Performing on the data, he purchased 200,000 shares and made practically $600,000 in revenue when Spectrum’s inventory spiked.
The conviction pressured him to step down as chairman of Benihana Inc. and created new problems. To guard his holdings and preserve the corporate’s liquor licenses from being revoked, Rocky positioned his shares of Benihana of Tokyo (BOT) into a brand new belief in 1998. BOT was the household’s most dear holding: it managed all of Benihana’s worldwide franchises and the flagship Honolulu restaurant, which by itself accounted for practically 40% of BOT’s gross sales and greater than 60% of its earnings.
The belief, valued between $35 and $50 million, was managed by three of his kids — Kevin, Kyle, and Kana Grace — together with household pal Kenneth Podziba. Whereas the U.S. arm of the enterprise, Benihana Inc., would later be bought to exterior buyers, BOT and the belief remained the household’s golden ticket. As a substitute of defending the Aokis’ fortune, the association planted the seeds of one of many messiest inheritance battles in trendy enterprise historical past.
Rocky and Keiko Aoki in 2005 (Photograph by Neil Rasmus/Patrick McMullan by way of Getty Pictures)
Household Feud
In 2002, Rocky secretly married his third spouse, Keiko Ono, a former mannequin and enterprise advisor. His kids have been blindsided. Two of them, Kevin and Grace, even handed her a postnuptial settlement on the marriage ceremony social gathering, demanding she resign any declare to the BOT belief and its belongings. She refused.
Quickly after, the household conflict erupted. Rocky accused 4 of his kids — Kevin, Grace, Kyle, and Echo — of making an attempt to “wrest management” of the businesses and sued them in 2005. He disinherited them in retaliation, revising his will repeatedly to favor Keiko. He left solely two of his seven kids, Steve and Devon, as potential heirs.
By then, each have been carving out their very own fame. Steve was turning into one of the vital recognizable DJs on this planet, identified for his marathon units and cake-throwing stage antics. Devon had established herself as a world mannequin and actress, the face of Versace and Chanel, and a star of movies like Sin Metropolis and a couple of Quick 2 Livid.
The kids have been livid that their father had handed Keiko growing affect over belongings that had initially been positioned of their management. The board of Benihana Inc. additional difficult issues by diluting the household’s stake from 50.9% to 36.5%, explicitly to stop Keiko from consolidating energy. By the point Rocky died in 2008 at age 69, the lawsuits have been unresolved, and his fortune — particularly the BOT belief — was already mired in authorized knots.
The Widow vs. The Youngsters
When Rocky handed away, Keiko assumed management of his property and appointed herself CEO of Benihana of Tokyo, the corporate housed contained in the belief. That belief, value round $50 million, now held the worldwide franchise rights and the Hawaii Benihana location — the one most worthwhile unit in all the empire.
Virtually instantly, Rocky’s six surviving kids challenged her authority. Below the belief’s guidelines, solely Steve and Devon have been eventual heirs, however neither might entry the cash till they turned 45. Within the meantime, Keiko was trustee, controlling each greenback.
As trustee and CEO, Keiko pursued a string of flashy however ill-fated concepts. She launched the “Beni Ladies,” a hip-hop dance duo in hibachi costumes, and launched the “Beni Burger” on the Honolulu location. Each gimmicks sparked lawsuits from Benihana Inc., the U.S. chain already exterior the household’s management. She additionally spent hundreds of thousands preventing authorized battles in a number of states, shedding greater than as soon as.
The heirs accused her of squandering the fortune their father had meant for them. In courtroom filings, they argued that she was draining the belief with reckless litigation and weird advertising ploys. Keiko countered that she was preserving Rocky’s legacy. The feud turned the $50 million BOT belief right into a weapon — one aspect claiming mismanagement, the opposite claiming betrayal.
The Court docket Decides
After years of litigation, New York’s Court docket of Appeals delivered a decisive ruling in 2016: the Benihana Protecting Belief belonged to Steve and Devon Aoki. Keiko had no proper to inherit it.
The choice was a significant victory for the 2 superstar heirs, however with a catch. The belief would stay sealed till they turned 45, leaving Keiko in control of the belongings within the meantime. Steve, born in 1977, gained entry in 2022, whereas Devon, born in 1982, should wait till 2028.
The Model Strikes On
Whereas Rocky’s heirs and widow fought over the Benihana of Tokyo belief, the U.S. arm of the corporate was shifting in a special path. In 2012, non-public fairness agency Angelo Gordon purchased Benihana Inc. — the American chain of hibachi eating places, together with the Haru and RA Sushi manufacturers — for about $296 million, taking it non-public and out of the Aoki household’s palms.
That meant that by the point the inheritance battle was raging, the household was now not linked to the U.S. eating places most diners affiliate with the Benihana title. What they have been preventing over was BOT, which managed the abroad franchises and the one most worthwhile restaurant within the system: the Honolulu location.
In 2024, Benihana Inc. modified palms once more when The ONE Group Hospitality — guardian of the STK steakhouse chain — acquired it for $365 million. Right this moment, the Benihana model most People know is run by a company hospitality group, whereas the Aokis’ connection survives solely by BOT and the belief Rocky left behind.
Legacy
Rocky Aoki constructed a restaurant empire with the aptitude of a showman and lived a life that blurred the road between enterprise and spectacle. Benihana went on to turn into a worldwide model, however his fortune ignited one of the vital protracted and bitter inheritance battles in trendy American enterprise.
Right this moment, the eating places proceed underneath company possession, whereas his household’s story stays a cautionary story about wealth, energy, and legacy. Rocky as soon as joked, “Cash not every thing, simply 99%.” Ultimately, the empire he created proved him proper — as a result of a long time later, it is the cash, not the meals, that persons are nonetheless preventing over.
