How to look up a Chicago restaurant’s health inspection
The City of Chicago publishes every food inspection since 2010 as open data. Here is how to find one restaurant’s record and make sense of it.
Updated 26 September 2026
Find the record on the City’s data portal
- Open the Food Inspections dataset on the Chicago Data Portal and choose to view the data.
- Search or filter for the restaurant’s name. Each record has two names: the DBA (“doing business as”, the legal name) and the AKA (“also known as”, the name the public knows). If the sign on the door finds nothing, try the other name or search by street address.
- Sort by Inspection Date, newest first, to see the latest visit at the top.
- Check the License #. It is the unique number the City assigns to that establishment for licensing, so it tells you which rows belong to the place you mean when names or addresses repeat.
What each column means
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Facility Type | Restaurant, bakery, tavern, grocery store, school and so on. |
| Risk | Risk 1 (High), 2 (Medium) or 3 (Low). Higher-risk places are inspected more often. |
| Inspection Type | Why the inspector came: canvass (routine), license, complaint, suspected food poisoning, consultation or task force, plus re-inspections. |
| Results | Pass, Pass w/ Conditions or Fail. Some rows record visits with no result, such as No Entry or Out of Business. |
| Violations | Each violation found, with the inspector’s comments. |
How to read the violations
For each violation, the record gives the requirement the establishment has to meet, followed by a description of what the inspector found. Current reports number each item, for example:
- “10. Adequate handwashing sinks properly supplied and accessible”
- “22. Proper cold holding temperatures”
- “38. Insects, rodents, & animals not present”
- “55. Physical facilities installed, maintained & clean”
One inspection often lists several items. The result tells you how serious they were: under the City’s definitions a pass means no critical or serious violations were found, even if the list includes maintenance items like worn floors, and a fail means critical or serious violations could not be corrected during the inspection.
Before you draw conclusions
- An inspection is a snapshot. The City notes that results reflect what the inspector found at the time and may not reflect other times.
- Look for the re-inspection. Re-inspections are recorded as their own rows, so a fail is best read alongside what came next.
- A fail is not a closure. The City says a fail does not necessarily mean the license is suspended.
- Duplicates happen. The City warns that the dataset may contain duplicate reports.
- New results arrive weekly. The dataset is updated with new inspections each Friday.
Or look it up in the app
In Chicago Restaurants: Ranked, search by name, street, neighborhood, cuisine or zip code. Each place page shows its grade and score, how many inspections it has had since January 2023, failed inspections and pest citations, the date and result of the last visit, and a link to the City’s official records. The data is built into the app and this version includes City records through September 20, 2026. How the grade is calculated · How Chicago inspections work.
Sources
- City of Chicago Data Portal, Food Inspections dataset (4ijn-s7e5), including its disclaimer.
- City of Chicago Data Portal, Food Inspections data description (PDF): field definitions, results and update schedule.
- 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.