Restaurant inspections

About restaurant inspections

You can keep tabs on the cleanliness and sanitation of restaurants near you in this section of EveryBlock. We take recent restaurant inspections from New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and then we map them, so you can find results in your neighborhood.

Each inspection result includes the establishment's name, inspection date and the number of violation points the establishment received. The number of violation points determines whether a followup inspection is required:

* 0-27 points: No followup required
* 28 or more points: Followup required

Each inspection includes a link to the appropriate page on nyc.gov, where you can find full violation details. Note that our source of the data updates more frequently than nyc.gov, so these links might take you to empty pages. In that case, just give it a few days and nyc.gov will eventually update its site.

Source

The data comes from the online restaurant inspection database published by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The information is updated regularly and we at EveryBlock look for new data each night.

What else should I know about restaurant inspections?

Inspectors review establishments based on “risk factors” for food-borne illness — such as improper cooking temperatures and poor hygiene practices by restaurant employees.

The more severe a violation, the more points it costs restaurants. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene publishes Important Information for Food Service Establishments, which explains the inspection process and scoring system.

Inspectors can issue an administrative summons called a Notice of Violation for violating the New York City Health Code, the State Sanitary Code, or other applicable laws.

Note that the city removes inspection results from its database if it learns that an establishment has closed. The results will still be available on EveryBlock.

The following disclaimer appears on the department's Web site regarding inspection data: "As a result of an inspection, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene may issue violations to the establishment. Owners have the opportunity to dispute these violations at the Department's Administrative Tribunal, except when there are only general violations that result in fewer than 14 points. In these instances the violations must be corrected, but are not heard at the Administrative Tribunal. The information presented here may reflect inspections that have not yet been adjudicated."