When Bay Area restaurateur You You Xue witnessed a customer changing their child\u2019s diaper atop a communal booth in the middle of the dining room, he felt he had to put a stop to the madness.<\/p>\n
At the time of the incident, about a year ago, Xue had already been thinking that customer behavior at his restaurant Chez Xue<\/a> in Foster City had deteriorated, with kids \u201cfooling around and basically trashing the place\u201d and parents failing to put a stop to it, he said. <\/p>\n The San Mateo County restaurant has used a digital menu since it opened in 2021 that customers can access with a QR code. And so it was easy, Xue said, to affix a notice at the top of the menu<\/a>: \u201cPlease control your children.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cChez Xue is a family-friendly restaurant. However, we are not a playground. Please ensure children REMAIN SEATED at all times and respectful of fellow guests and the dining environment. Running around, shouting, making noise with utensils, etc. WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n It notes that guests who do not respect the policy may be asked to leave and that the restaurant will \u201chold parents financially liable for all damage caused by their children to restaurant property.\u201d<\/p>\n The policy has been in place for about a year, Xue said, but it went viral last week and garnered headlines after another local business owner posted screenshots<\/a> of the restaurant\u2019s policy on X.<\/p>\n To ensure parents know the restaurant means business, the warning also cites \u201crecent damages.\u201d <\/p>\n Examples include an April 2025 incident during which a child picked up and then smashed a credit card machine on the ground, the restaurant said, leading to a $327.03 bill for the parents. In a December incident, according to Chez Xue, a child carved pictures into the surface of the table with a utensil, costing the parents $109.38. A shattered teacup bumped by a child playing in a booth seat resulted in a charge to the parent of $5.47.<\/p>\n Xue said the restaurant seeks to accommodate families. It\u2019s not a fussy place, with bright lighting and no candles, an environment in which toddlers could, in theory, careen around. But he said he feels \u201csome people take advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are a casual restaurant,\u201d Xue said, \u201cbut we\u2019re not a Chuck E. Cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n Xue, who also owns a cozy Michelin-recognized restaurant serving Hunan-style Chinese eats in Millbrae called Wonderful, does not shy away from the spotlight. Several years ago, he railed against so-called \u201cjunk fees\u201d on bills, suing dozens of San Francisco businesses in 2024 over hidden surcharges. In another lawsuit<\/a>, he claimed an arcade rigged its claw machines against players, alleging it functioned as \u201ca casino for children.\u201d That year, he also ran for a seat<\/a> on Millbrae City Council but lost.<\/p>\n Xue puts the blame for children\u2019s behavior squarely on the parents but says he takes no pleasure in playing enforcer. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be put in that position,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s so awkward to go up to a parent and say something so obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n Rowdy children represent yet another challenge for restaurants like his that have struggled through the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, skyrocketing prices for beef, cooking oil and other goods, Xue said. He sees Chez Xue as his own home, he says. So he takes the policy seriously.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s survived against all odds,\u201d he said, \u201cand that\u2019s why I hope people will show some more respect.\u201d<\/p>\n The general reaction to the policy has been overwhelmingly positive, Xue said, aside from some remarks on social media that charging for a smashed teacup was a petty move. The restaurant has even received a smattering of new customers as well as phone calls voicing support.<\/p>\n \u201cWe said the quiet part out loud,\u201d Xue said. \u201cWe said something that a lot of people are thinking, and we\u2019ve come forward and spoken on behalf of other restaurants and on behalf of customers who have had a meal ruined by a loud child.\u201d<\/p>\n Since Xue instituted the official policy, and particularly since he made the notice more prominent at the top of the menu, the number of incidents \u201chas fallen considerably to basically zero,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The 28-year-old, whose legal name is Alexander Xue and who doesn\u2019t have kids of his own, said he had seen some parenting become more lax, with rowdiness that his own parents wouldn\u2019t have tolerated from him growing up. <\/p>\n At the end of the day, however, he only concerns himself with what happens within the four walls of his business and concedes that \u201cthe vast majority of parents are very responsible.\u201d <\/p>\n Still, now and then, a few \u201cruin the experience for everyone else.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Bay Area restaurateur You You Xue witnessed a customer changing their child\u2019s diaper atop a communal booth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3653,7,9,8,5698,3409,9182,157450,157449,4456,3410,7087,592,1410,5409,157448,157447,72],"class_list":["post-391196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-bill","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-restaurant","tag-child","tag-customer","tag-customer-behavior","tag-digital-menu","tag-incident","tag-kid","tag-parent","tag-people","tag-place","tag-policy","tag-restaurant-chez-xue","tag-xue","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}