A Chinese restaurant owner had a Crocodile Dundee moment when he chased a knife-wielding teenager with two meat cleavers.

A 19-year-old man, carrying a kitchen knife, tucked in his pants, allegedly confronted Hunter Hu, 46, on Thursday afternoon.

The intruder passed a note over the counter demanding money.

Instead of getting cash from the till, the restaurant owner from Brisbane's north returned with the two meat cleavers.

Closed-circuit TV footage has captured the moment Mr Hu chased the 19-year-old would-be thief from his Master Noodle business at Kedron.

'You have one knife? I have two,' he told Seven News on Saturday.

The teenage intruder then ran across six lanes of traffic at Gympie Road, during peak hour, to Hungry Jacks.

He was arrested a short time later at the fast food diner after witnesses reported seeing him carry a weapon, Queensland police said.

Mr Hu's 15-year-old daughter Joanna was having dinner on tables outside, at 5pm on Thursday, as her father chased the intruder.

'My dad wasn't scared,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'In China, he dealt with some similar things.'

Mr Hu has run the Kedron business for the past two years and had previously operated restaurants in China.

Joanna, who works for her parents part time, said her mother was also working on Thursday when the teenager entered the takeaway restaurant.

'My dad saw the note and grabbed the knives,' she said.

Mr Hu said the note read: 'I have one knife. Give me money.'

The small business owner chef's reaction is reminiscent of the famous scene in the 1986 Australian blockbuster Crocodile Dundee, where Paul Hogan's Mick Dundee pulls out a long blade when a thug brandishes a small knife.

'That's not a knife. That's a knife,' Dundee said.

A 19-year-old Kedron man has been charged with attempted armed robbery and appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday.