By Neal Wong

A San Francisco restaurant owner closed his Richmond District business on July 28 after he was put in a chokehold outside of it in March, in what he said was a racially motivated attack, and after prosecutors declined to file charges.

Chino Yang, 38, has shut Chino Yang’s, the Hunan restaurant he has run on Clement Street for more than five years. His other restaurant, Kung Food, on McAllister Street near Divisadero Street, will stay open as it enters its 12th year.

Officer Paulina Henderson, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department, said officers responded to the 1800 block of Clement Street at about 10:06 p.m. on March 19 for a report of an assault. The victim told officers he argued with an unknown woman while closing his restaurant and that an unknown man assaulted him during the argument.

“Both parties fled in a vehicle that was last seen driving eastbound on Clement Street towards 19th Avenue,” Henderson said. “No arrests have been made at this time.”

The San Francisco District Attorney’s office said police had probable cause to make an arrest, but that prosecutors are held to a higher standard. The office said it discussed the decision with Yang and connected him with its Victim Services Division.

“In this case, there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect was not acting in self-defense or defense of others,” a statement from the office says. “If additional evidence is brought forward before the statute of limitation expires, we will re-evaluate the case to see if it is possible to meet the burden of proof.”

Yang said the confrontation began about 10 p.m., a half-hour past the restaurant’s 9:30 p.m. closing time, when a woman walked in from next door and tried to order. He said he told her the kitchen had already closed.

“She went on this sort of stereotypical rant,” Yang said. “She was like, ‘No, you’re not, you’re Asian, you stay open.’”

According to Yang, the woman said she had recently traveled to Japan where businesses were open late.

Yang said he told her he is Chinese American and that there are all types of Asians. The woman left, he said, then came back as he, his mother and his sous chef locked up.

“Don’t get f–g smart with me, you Asian f–k,” Yang said the woman told him. “You think Chinese is the s–t? What about Irish? We run this f–g country.”

Yang says the woman’s husband then charged at him, pushed him twice and dragged him by the neck to a stretch of sidewalk without camera coverage, where the man held him in a chokehold for five to 10 seconds. His cook used a translation app to tell the man that Yang has a heart issue, asking him to let Yang go.

Yang has posted surveillance video on his Instagram page of the beginning of the alleged assault, but it’s obscured by an awning.

“I was gasping for air,” Yang said. “My mom was begging for my life.”

Yang had a heart attack at a gym in December 2023 and was taken to an emergency room and had surgery to place a stent, he said. It came days after he posted “San Francisco Our Home,” a rap video blaming then-Mayor London Breed and other City leaders for burglaries at his restaurants and for attacks on Asian residents.

The song briefly made Yang a citywide figure. Breed supporters called a news conference demanding he take the video down, and Yang apologized publicly in late December 2023, saying he had acted impulsively. He said afterward that he had been threatened and he said that the threats extended to burning down his restaurant with his family inside.

“I had to sleep with my freaking Glock on me, man, I kid you not, and that’s not healthy,” Yang said.

Yang said he had waited more than 100 days for an update on the March assault. He learned only after calling that investigators had prepared an arrest warrant but prosecutors said the case lacked footage or photos of the chokehold, he said.

“They prepared the arrest warrant on April 15, and you had me wait until July 1 to call you,” Yang said.

Yang said the outcome left him with little confidence in the City.

“This is the sort of frustration, this sort of disappointment that the City has once again failed me,” Yang said. “This is a sort of hopelessness, I’ll say.”

Connie Brandon, who works in the restaurant industry and has eaten food from Chino Yang’s for about three years, said the customer, not Yang, escalated the encounter.

“I think it’s really messed up,” Brandon said. “When someone says ‘no, they’re not going to serve you,’ a person with any decency says, ‘Okay, thank you,’ and you leave. He did not instigate it in my eyes.”

Brandon said the closure costs the neighborhood more than a storefront.

“This is a small business, and any little incident like that ruins what somebody is trying to create for the neighborhood, for themselves, for their family,” Brandon said. “It’s a neighborhood place of safe haven. Now he has to make a bigger effort to get justice.”

Yang has identified the man only as a martial arts instructor who teaches nearby, and said his lawyers advised him against publishing a name.

“He only represents himself,” Yang said. “He does not represent his business or anybody associated with it or with him. The fact that he’s still able to have a smirk on his face and teach class after he assaulted me is outrageously unacceptable.”

Yang said he is consulting lawyers about a civil case.

“This is bigger than me and greater than my incident,” Yang said. “The outcome of this case is going to significantly reshape or redefine the position of the Asian man in this country in 2026. I cannot go down in history as someone who submits to bigotry and submits to injustice.”

The Clement Street restaurant was profitable and this was the only incident of physical violence Yang has faced in his five years of business there. The family had considered downsizing the menu and staff instead of closing, until his mother, who is in her 70s and watched the attack, had the final say.

“Not all money is good money,” Yang said. “I really have to consider my mother’s feelings. I’m 38 now. I want to provide for my family. I want to make it home for my wife and my children.”