Discover trustworthy restaurants using real public health-inspection records - not opinions, not stars.
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A score is a snapshot of one visit, built by adding or subtracting points for each observed violation of the local food code, which in most states is adopted from the FDA Food Code. It reflects what an inspector saw during a few hours on a single day, not the kitchen's average condition over the year. Because every county writes its own point weights and scale direction, a 92 in one jurisdiction and a 92 in another can describe very different kitchens, so a raw number is only meaningful next to the rules that produced it.
New York City uses a demerit system: the inspector adds points for each violation, so 0 to 13 points earns an A, 14 to 27 a B, and 28 or more a C. Los Angeles County starts every restaurant at 100 and deducts points, so 90 to 100 is an A and 80 to 89 a B. Both use the same 0-100 span in opposite directions, which is why a score of 12 is excellent in Manhattan and in Los Angeles County would put a bare score card in the window instead of a letter, since anything under 70 there gets no grade at all.
Grade Pending means the restaurant scored 14 points or more on both its initial inspection and its unannounced reinspection, earning a B or a C, and has taken the result to the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, so no letter is final yet. It is not a hidden C, and it is not a clean bill of health either. The underlying inspection is already public on the NYC Health Department's restaurant inspection site, so the honest move is to read the actual violations rather than guess from the placard.
Most jurisdictions run one to three unannounced routine inspections a year, with the count set by a risk category based on the menu, the amount of raw protein handling, and the size of the operation. A sushi bar or a full-service kitchen handling raw meat is typically inspected more often than a coffee shop reheating packaged pastry. Complaint-driven and follow-up inspections happen on top of that schedule whenever a report or a failed result triggers them.
Nearly every portal labels the inspection type, usually as routine, reinspection or follow-up, and complaint or consumer complaint. A routine is the scheduled unannounced visit that produces the posted grade or score. A reinspection checks whether earlier violations were corrected and often carries the score that ends up on the placard, while a complaint inspection is triggered by a specific report and may only cover the issue raised, which is why its violation list can look unusually short.
The FDA Food Code sorts violations into priority, priority foundation, and core. Priority items are the ones with a direct link to foodborne illness, such as cooking and holding temperatures, cross-contamination from raw to ready-to-eat food, sick employees working, and unsafe water or sewage backups. Priority foundation items support those controls, like a missing thermometer or no soap at the handwash sink, while core items cover maintenance and cleaning that matter over time but do not make a customer sick that night.
Closures are usually imminent health hazards rather than point totals: sewage backing up into the kitchen, loss of hot water or potable water, no power or refrigeration, a live pest infestation, or an outbreak traced to the establishment. The health department suspends the operating permit and the restaurant must correct the hazard, then pass a reinspection before the permit is restored, which in bad cases takes days. New York City adds a second route: a restaurant that keeps scoring 28 or more through repeated monitoring inspections can be closed for serious and persistent violations rather than for one catastrophic finding.
Inspectors cite evidence, not just sightings, so droppings, gnaw marks, tracking, or an egg case are enough to write a violation without anyone seeing a live animal. One filth-fly or a single old droppings citation on a report from two years ago that was corrected on reinspection is common in dense urban food districts and says little on its own. What matters is repetition: the same pest code appearing inspection after inspection, or a live infestation finding, points to a structural problem the operator has not fixed.
Food service inspection in the United States is delegated to county and city environmental health agencies, so there is no federal or, in many states, even statewide search. The reliable path is to search for the county or city health department that licenses the restaurant, then look for a link named restaurant inspections, food facility search, or environmental health. Large jurisdictions such as New York City, Los Angeles County, Chicago, and King County publish full searchable databases, while smaller counties may only respond to a public records request.
Public inspection records will not list allergen incidents directly, but they do show the hygiene practices that drive cross-contact: bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat food, improper equipment cleaning and sanitizing, and unlabeled or improperly stored food. Scan the last two or three inspections for repeated sanitation citations before you book. At the restaurant, tell the server it is an allergy rather than a preference, ask whether the kitchen has a documented allergen procedure, and ask specifically about shared fryers, shared grill surfaces, and shared utensils, since those are where most cross-contact happens.