diff --git a/cluster/gce/util.sh b/cluster/gce/util.sh
index cddb03f26e..6a3811dbd0 100755
--- a/cluster/gce/util.sh
+++ b/cluster/gce/util.sh
@@ -981,7 +981,7 @@ function restart-kube-proxy {
 
 # Restart the kube-apiserver on a node ($1)
 function restart-apiserver {
-  ssh-to-node "$1" "sudo /etc/init.d/kube-apiserver restart"
+  ssh-to-node "$1" "sudo docker kill `sudo docker ps | grep /kube-apiserver | awk '{print $1}'`"
 }
 
 # Perform preparations required to run e2e tests
diff --git a/cluster/gke/util.sh b/cluster/gke/util.sh
index 771e940381..f8422386ca 100755
--- a/cluster/gke/util.sh
+++ b/cluster/gke/util.sh
@@ -251,7 +251,7 @@ function restart-kube-proxy() {
 # Restart the kube-proxy on master ($1)
 function restart-apiserver() {
   echo "... in restart-kube-apiserver()"  >&2
-  ssh-to-node "$1" "sudo /etc/init.d/kube-apiserver restart"
+  ssh-to-node "$1" "sudo docker kill `sudo docker ps | grep /kube-apiserver | awk '{print $1}'`"
 }
 
 # Execute after running tests to perform any required clean-up.  This is called