Michigan Eats guide · city records

Detroit restaurant inspections, explained

Michigan has no statewide restaurant grade. The state's 45 local health departments inspect the restaurants they license under the Michigan Food Law and the FDA Food Code, and only one publishes the results in bulk: the Detroit Health Department. Here is what its results mean, and where the 1,134 Detroit places in our data stood at their latest routine inspection.

In compliance, or not

Inspectors cite each violation as Priority (it can directly cause foodborne illness), Priority Foundation (it supports a Priority item, like a missing thermometer) or Core (general cleanliness and upkeep). For each inspection the City's data says whether the place was in compliance. We show that result and the counts as the City published them, and compute no grade of our own.

  • Detroit

    Results of each place's latest routine inspection, through October 5, 2026. The City publishes about a month late.

    • In compliance 888 places
    • Not in compliance 246 places

    The City's records.

Since October 2024, Detroit's Dining with Confidence ordinance has restaurants post a placard: green for "In Compliance", red for "Enforcement" and white while a place waits for, or works toward, a green one. The placard also depends on enforcement and license status, which the open data doesn't carry, so we show no placard colour. One inspection is a snapshot of one day, and a violation corrected on the spot still counts. We don't list places by their results here; the web search can sort the Detroit list by the latest result.

The rest of Michigan

Oakland, Washtenaw, Wayne (outside Detroit), Kent, Ingham, Kalamazoo and Macomb counties publish inspection reports one search at a time, or not at all online, and several of those pages block automated access, so their results aren't here. Look a place up in the Michigan Eats web app for its food-service license and, in Detroit, its latest result and recent history.

Other guides: Coney islands, Detroit-style pizza, Pasties, Pączki, Middle Eastern in Dearborn, James Beard honors.