diff --git a/src/cpp/server/server_cc.cc b/src/cpp/server/server_cc.cc
index 46872c85a18..36c709eb45b 100644
--- a/src/cpp/server/server_cc.cc
+++ b/src/cpp/server/server_cc.cc
@@ -588,7 +588,7 @@ void Server::Start(ServerCompletionQueue** cqs, size_t num_cqs) {
   // If this server has any support for synchronous methods (has any sync
   // server CQs), make sure that we have a ResourceExhausted handler
   // to deal with the case of thread exhaustion
-  if (!sync_server_cqs_->empty()) {
+  if (sync_server_cqs_ != nullptr && !sync_server_cqs_->empty()) {
     resource_exhausted_handler_.reset(new internal::ResourceExhaustedHandler);
   }