It’s a Thursday night at Chapeau on Clement Street, and the scene is so familial and wholesome, it almost seems like you’re a guest at someone’s house. 

Owner and executive chef Philippe Gardelle is standing at the door welcoming regular customers with hugs. “Do you want your usual table?” he asks in a thick French accent. His wife, Ellen Gardelle, delivers sugar-rimmed martini glasses to a table. “Earl Grey martini, my creation — I used all the alcohols,” she says with a conspiratorial smile. 

Philippe’s brother, Christian Gardelle, waits on families enjoying bowls of chubby mussels swimming in white wine and butter. And Philippe and Ellen’s 30-year-old son, Andrew Gardelle, who serves as chef de cuisine, struts out of the kitchen holding an elaborate pâté en croûte. 

It’s so classically European, you almost want to roll your eyes. “A lot of the time, I’ll say it drives me crazy,” Andrew concedes of working with his mother, father, and uncle. “But it’s also good.” 

In fact, it might be the secret to Chapeau’s success. With chefs ranting about the impossibility of running a restaurant in this city, decades-old neighborhood staples like Chapeau seem to be doing the impossible: tapping into an infusion of energy by handing over the reins to a second generation. At Chapeau and other San Francisco restaurants, sons and daughters are stepping up to work with their parents and update the family business for a new generation of diners.  

Andrew doesn’t just work with his father; they work in tandem. The delicately sweet crème brûlée is Philippe’s recipe. But the intricate pistachio tart — that’s all Andrew. The bistro also recently underwent a months-long renovation that reflects Andrew’s style, rather than that of his parents. “It’s a little bit more zen, but in a French-Parisian way,” he says. 

The new look — butter-yellow banquets, a mint-green paint job, and live greenery — caters to the tastes of houseplant-obsessed millennials. “Obviously, what my parents do is great, but I’m a different generation,” Andrew says. “I bring a different perspective.”

Bringing a more youthful vibe is also the goal for sisters Bianca and Kandyce Wong, whose parents, Dennis and Annie, have owned and operated the Vietnamese restaurant Le Soleil since 1993. Like Andrew, the sisters grew up at the restaurant, passing long afternoons playing in a corner booth. They didn’t initially think they’d go into the family business, but after college, both came back to work alongside their parents. 

The restaurant has long been respected for Dennis’ classic Asian cuisine, including some of the city’s best Hainanese chicken. Now, once a week, the sisters run a lunch-only pop-up cheekily called Tuesday Noods. The pop-up lets them put their own little spin on things, like beef pho served with a side of chile-garlic soy sauce instead of hoisin and Sriracha. They also serve chicken wings coated in an addictive savory-sweet ginger-caramel infused with fish sauce. 

Some of the Tuesday Nood dishes will make it onto the menu of Le Soleil’s second location, set to open by the end of the year at Stonestown Galleria. Bianca and Kandyce are driving the expansion. Kandyce, who studied art and design, created trendy, color-blocked button-up shirts that will double as merch and staff uniforms. Each features a subtle, modernized version of the Le Soleil logo — a sun, of course — on the sleeve. “We’ll do a few combinations,” she says, flipping through various colorways. 

Matt Ho didn’t just help transition his parent’s restaurant into a new era — he brought it back to life. The original Bodega Bistro ended its 14-year run in the Tenderloin in 2017. But after working at high-end restaurants, including Nobu, Ho came back to help his dad, Billy Ho, reopen a new version of the business, Bodega SF, on Mason between Eddy and Ellis streets. 

At the new restaurant, Matt compromises, serving a pho-centric lunch menu similar to what was offered at the old Bodega Bistro, while making his mark at dinner. During the evening service, Matt tries to appeal to a younger crowd, serving oysters topped with smoked trout roe; a whole fish steamed with dill, turmeric, and galangal; and Asian-inspired cocktails, such as a martini infused with fish sauce and a gimlet flavored with pandan and chrysanthemum. 

Beyond the more polished dinner experience, the new iteration of Bodega comes from Matt’s experience working at larger, corporate-run restaurants. “He likes to be hands-on,” Matt says of his dad. “But if you have systems, you can build a restaurant where you don’t have to be there.” So while Billy felt he had to be at Bodega Bistro every day, Matt has created an infrastructure that gives him more work-life balance. 

Billy’s happy to see his son enjoy that luxury. “I’m not a chef,” he says. “It wasn’t my dream to have a restaurant.” He got into the business by investing in a friend’s restaurant, which he eventually took over and turned into Bodega Bistro. It wasn’t a passion project but a way to make money and survive. “It’s tough,” Billy says of the restaurant business. “But do I have regrets? No.” 

After all, it led his son to an industry he loves: “He definitely has more fun.”