'Please control your children': California restaurateur charges parents when kids run wild

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Set us as preferred When Bay Area restaurateur You You Xue witnessed a customer changing their child’s diaper atop a communal booth in the middle of the dining room, he felt he had to put a stop to the madness.At the time of the incident, about a year ago, Xue had already been thinking that customer behavior at his restaurant Chez Xue in Foster City had deteriorated, with kids “fooling around and basically trashing the place” and parents failing to put a stop to it, he said.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: “Please control your children.” “Chez 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!” it reads.It notes that guests who do not respect the policy may be asked to leave and that the restaurant will “hold parents financially liable for all damage caused by their children to restaurant property.”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 of the restaurant’s policy on X.To ensure parents know the restaurant means business, the warning also cites “recent damages.” 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 b...