How to Look Up a Restaurant's Health Inspection Before You Eat There
Inspection records · Lookup · Updated 2026-07-22
Restaurant health inspection records are public in every US state, but there is no national database - you look them up through the health department that actually did the inspection. That is a state agency in a few places (Florida through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, New York State through health.data.ny.gov) and a county or city environmental health division almost everywhere else.
So the real question is not "where do I find inspection reports" but "which portal covers this address". This guide gives the publishing agency and search tool for the major jurisdictions, explains what a report actually shows once you open it, and flags the difference between a routine inspection, a complaint visit, and a reinspection - three records that look similar and mean very different things.
Restaurant inspection lookup by city and state
| Jurisdiction | Publishing agency | Portal / search tool | What you get back | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | Dept. of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Hotels and Restaurants | myfloridalicense.com - Division of Hotels and Restaurants inspection search | Narrative report; violations split into High Priority, Intermediate and Basic; an outcome line such as met inspection standards or warning issued | Statewide |
| New York State (outside NYC) | NYS Dept. of Health with the county local health departments | health.data.ny.gov - "Food Service Establishment: Last Inspection" | Violation list plus counts of critical and non-critical violations, and whether criticals were corrected. No score, no letter grade | Statewide, excluding NYC |
| New York City | NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) | NYC Open Data - "DOHMH New York City Restaurant Inspection Results" | Numeric violation score, A/B/C letter grade, and a critical flag on each individual violation | Five boroughs |
| Los Angeles County | LA County Dept. of Public Health, Environmental Health | ehservices.publichealth.lacounty.gov - Public Portal, Inspection Results | Numeric score and A/B/C letter grade, plus a separately published facility closure list | County, including most incorporated cities |
| Chicago | Chicago Dept. of Public Health, Food Protection Program | data.cityofchicago.org - "Food Inspections" | Pass, Pass with Conditions, or Fail, plus the violation narrative and a risk category. No numeric score | City only |
| King County (Seattle) | Public Health - Seattle & King County | kingcounty.gov/foodsafety/ratings - Food Inspections and Safety Rating map | Inspection history with per-visit violation points, plus one of four food safety ratings (Excellent, Good, Okay, Needs to improve) that the business must post on a sign | County |
| Austin | Austin Public Health, Environmental Health Services Division | data.austintexas.gov - "Food Establishment Inspection Scores" | Numeric score out of 100 under the Texas Food Establishment Rules, for the last three years | City |
| San Diego County | County of San Diego Dept. of Environmental Health and Quality, Food and Housing Division | sandiegocounty.gov - "SD Food Info" restaurant inspection search | A/B/C letter grade with the underlying inspection report attached | County |
If your city is not on that list
- Search the county first, not the city: Environmental health is usually a county function even in big cities. Search "[your county] environmental health restaurant inspection" before you try the city name. Chicago, Boston and Austin are city-run exceptions; most of the country is not.
- Check whether your state runs one statewide portal: A minority of states centralize. Florida publishes every licensed restaurant through DBPR; New York State publishes through its open data portal for everywhere outside New York City. If a statewide search exists, it is almost always more complete than a county page.
- Fall back to the AFDO directory: The Association of Food and Drug Officials maintains the closest thing to a master index of state and local inspection-report sites. It is a link list rather than a search engine, but it will tell you whether a jurisdiction publishes online at all.
- Ask for the record if nothing is online: Publishing online is a courtesy; the records themselves are public under state open-records law. A written request to the local health department for a specific establishment's recent inspection reports will get you the same documents.
What an inspection report actually tells you
Once you find the record, four fields carry almost all the signal. Inspection type tells you why the inspector was there. Inspection date tells you how stale the finding is. Violation codes map to a numbered item in that jurisdiction's adoption of the FDA Food Code, and each is flagged critical or non-critical (Florida calls them High Priority and Basic; NYC uses a critical flag on each violation). The outcome is the score, grade, or pass/fail line - and it is the field that varies most between jurisdictions, which is exactly why an 88 in one county is not comparable to an 88 in another.
Skip the portal hunt. Sterling puts 178,000+ restaurants across 18 US jurisdictions on one map, pulled weekly from the official health departments themselves - New York City, Los Angeles County, Chicago, Seattle, the State of Florida, San Diego County, Austin and more. Every rating is tappable straight through to the inspection record it came from, so you never have to guess which county website to search. Download Sterling: Dine with Confidence on the App Store.
Reading a report without over-reading it
- One bad inspection is noise; a pattern is signal. Look at three or four consecutive routine inspections before you judge a kitchen. Inspectors vary, and a single unlucky visit is common.
- Weight critical violations far above the total count. Ten paperwork and maintenance findings matter less than one improper cold-holding temperature or one bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat food.
- Check whether criticals were corrected on site. New York State's dataset publishes this explicitly, and most narrative reports note it. Corrected-during-inspection is a materially better result than the same violation left open.
- Watch the date. A great score from 2023 says very little about the kitchen today, particularly if the restaurant has changed hands.
How Sterling handles the lookup
Sterling exists because the answer to "is this place clean" should not depend on knowing your county's environmental health URL. It reads what the health department published - refrigeration, hand-washing, pest control, temperature, allergen handling - normalizes it across jurisdictions that score on completely different scales, and returns one of five plain-English tiers: Exceptional, Strong, Fair, Concerning, or Poor. Every rating is computed deterministically from the public record and stays traceable, so tapping a rating shows you the inspection it came from rather than asking you to trust it. Health filters hide places with recent pest, allergen or sanitation issues, restaurant alerts tell you when a place you follow slips, and travel mode switches cities automatically when you land somewhere new. The Sterling Standard mark goes only to restaurants scoring 95 or above with three or more recent inspections and zero critical violations in the last twelve months - about 16% qualify.
Frequently asked questions
Are restaurant health inspection records public?
Yes. Inspection reports are public records in every state, and most health departments publish them online voluntarily. Where a jurisdiction does not have a website, you can still request a specific restaurant's reports from the local health department under state open-records law.
Is there a national database of restaurant health inspections?
No. Inspections are carried out by state, county and city health departments, and each publishes its own records on its own schedule and its own scale. The Association of Food and Drug Officials maintains the closest thing to a national index, but it is a directory of links rather than a searchable database.
How do I check a restaurant's health score before I go?
Find the agency that inspects it - usually the county environmental health division, sometimes a statewide agency like Florida's DBPR - and search the restaurant by name or address on that agency's portal. Then read the inspection type and the critical violations, not just the headline number.
How often are restaurants inspected?
It varies by jurisdiction and by risk category. Most health departments inspect full-service restaurants that handle raw and temperature-controlled foods roughly one to three times a year, with lower-risk operations inspected less often and complaint or follow-up visits added on top. Check your local health department for its stated frequency.