Xu’s family came to the U.S. from China in 1989 and settled in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. Xu’s mother ran a Chinese restaurant to build up the funds to go to medical school. Xu’s father waited tables at a University of Illinois on-campus restaurant to defray the costs of his aeronautical engineering studies. “They inspired me to do whatever it takes to become the best version of myself that I could be,” he said.
Xu worked at his mother’s restaurant between the ages of 9 and 18, learning much about how restaurants struggled to build up a customer base. “It was really whatever my mom asked,” Xu said, “so washing dishes, busing tables, sometimes making websites or fixing a payment system or a printer. Nothing glamorous. It’s whatever my mom asked me to do to help her execute.”