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A California small business owner is tired of out-of-control kids in his restaurant, and now he’s making parents pay the price.
You You Xue operates two restaurants south of San Francisco. He told The Post he introduced damage charges on certain bills after repeated problems with unruly children disrupting other diners.
“My staff, my servers were being forced to parent children on behalf of other parents. That’s not their job,” Xue told The Post, adding, “Parenting has become so relaxed, and I know if I acted some ways these children are acting, I would have gotten my a– beat.”
The restaurant’s online menu includes an advisory at the top of the page beneath the headline, “Please control your children.”
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Some of the forbidden actions are running around, shouting, and making noise with utensils, which the menu goes on to say in all caps, “will not be tolerated.”
“Guests not respecting this policy may be asked to leave. We will hold parents financially liable for all damage caused by their children to restaurant property,” it adds.
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The page also lists specific instances when Xue decided to charge parents for bad behavior. In one case, a child picked up and dropped a credit card machine, shattering the screen. The family was charged $327.03. Another instance saw a child carve designs into a tabletop using utensils. Those parents were charged $109.38 in damages.
The final instance listed on the website read, “A customer’s child was playing on the booth seats and bumped a teacup onto the ground, causing it to shatter. We charged the parent $5.47 in damages.”
Xue has said the reaction to the rules, which were implemented last year but went viral last month, has been generally positive — though some online felt charging for the teacup went too far.
He clarified to The Post that parents aren’t charged if accidents happen, but he felt the new policy was necessary after witnessing a deterioration in parenting and the behavior of young kids.
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“We don’t blame the kids — I’m very proud of the fact that this is an unpretentious restaurant where people can come with their whole families,” he said, adding, “It’s to remind this very small group of parents who are not doing their jobs: please do your job so we can do ours.”
The viral policy also sparked discussion on “Fox & Friends,” where co-host Lawrence Jones argued that a lack of parenting is fueling disruptive behavior. “This is pretty simple. This is not controversial, right?” Jones said Thursday.
He pointed to his own childhood, saying his parents only had to give him and his siblings a look to get them to behave. “My parents, they handled discipline very well. And it got to the point where all they had to do is give me a look. mee and my siblings a look, and we knew to get into shape,” he said.
“That has been discouraged in modern-day society. And so, you got kids acting crazy on planes, acting crazy in stores, kicking at seats. You have them throwing stuff across the room,” Jones added.
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