How Chicago restaurant inspections work
Every restaurant in Chicago is inspected by the City’s Department of Public Health. Here is who does it, how often, what the results mean and where the records go, taken from the City’s own documentation.
Updated 26 September 2026
Who inspects restaurants in Chicago
Inspections are done by staff from the Chicago Department of Public Health’s Food Protection Program, using a standardized procedure. Results go into a database and are reviewed and approved by a State of Illinois Licensed Environmental Health Practitioner before they are published on the City’s data portal.
The same system covers much more than restaurants. The City’s facility types include bakeries, coffee shops, taverns, grocery stores, caterers, schools, hospitals, day care centers, mobile food vendors and wholesalers.
Risk categories and how often places are inspected
Every establishment gets a risk category from 1 to 3, based on its risk of harming public health; 1 is the highest. In the published data they appear as “Risk 1 (High)”, “Risk 2 (Medium)” and “Risk 3 (Low)”. The City ties inspection frequency to that category, and the Department of Public Health says the inspector sets it by looking at the kinds of food prepared and how they are prepared and served.
| Risk category | Routine inspections |
|---|---|
| Risk 1 (High) | Twice a year |
| Risk 2 (Medium) | Once a year |
| Risk 3 (Low) | Every other year |
That is the routine schedule. Complaints, new licenses and reports of illness add inspections on top of it.
The types of inspection
- Canvass: the routine inspection, and the most common type, done at a frequency set by the risk category.
- License: required before a new establishment can get its license to operate.
- Complaint: a response to a complaint about the establishment.
- Suspect food poisoning: a complaint inspection after one or more people say they got sick from eating there.
- Consultation: requested by the owner before the establishment opens.
- Task force: an inspection of a bar or tavern.
Most of these can be followed by a re-inspection, which is recorded as its own inspection, for example “Canvass Re-Inspection”.
Pass, pass with conditions and fail
Each inspection ends in one of three results. The City defines them by whether the inspector found critical or serious violations:
- Pass: no critical or serious violations were found.
- Pass with conditions: critical or serious violations were found, but they were corrected during the inspection.
- Fail: critical or serious violations were found that could not be corrected during the inspection. The City notes that a fail does not necessarily mean the establishment’s license is suspended.
The data also contains visits with no pass or fail result, recorded as Out of Business, Business Not Located, No Entry or Not Ready.
On July 1, 2018, the Department of Public Health changed its inspection procedures and the definitions of violations to match the new Chicago Food Code. Current reports list numbered items such as “10. Adequate handwashing sinks properly supplied and accessible”, “22. Proper cold holding temperatures” and “38. Insects, rodents, & animals not present”.
Where the records go
The results are published as the Food Inspections dataset on the Chicago Data Portal, covering January 1, 2010 to the present, with new inspections added each Friday. The City adds two cautions: the data may still contain duplicate reports, and each result reflects what the inspector found at the time of the inspection, which may not match other times. How to look up a restaurant’s inspections.
How our app uses these records
Chicago Restaurants: Ranked reads this dataset for 8,349 Chicago places and scores each one on its inspections since January 2023. The result is a 0–100 score and an A–F grade that are ours, not the City’s. See exactly how the grades are calculated.
Sources
- City of Chicago Data Portal, Food Inspections dataset (4ijn-s7e5): description, the note on the July 1, 2018 change, and disclaimer.
- City of Chicago Data Portal, Food Inspections data description (PDF): facility types, risk categories, inspection types, results and update schedule.
- City of Chicago Department of Public Health, Understand Health Code Requirements for Food Establishments: how risk is assigned and inspection frequency by risk.
- Violation item titles quoted from inspection records in the Food Inspections dataset.
See every grade on a map
Chicago Restaurants: Ranked is a free iPhone and iPad app with our A–F grades for 7,600+ Chicago restaurants, rankings by inspection score, and a map with grade-colored pins. No ads, no account.