About restaurant inspections
Summary
Worried that the corner pizzeria might have a problem with flies? Or maybe you want to know if your neighborhood bar counts roaches among its regulars? In this section of EveryBlock, you can find recent results of restaurant inspections near you.
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health provides details about each inspection, including the establishment's name and address, the inspection date, the establishment's type — general restaurant, school, mobile food vendor, etc. — and critical violations, if any, that were found by inspectors. The violations range from the failure to protect food from contamination to a refrigerator that doesn't keep food at proper temperatures.
Note that only critical violations, and not those designated as "minor," are published on the health department's Web site (and, therefore, on EveryBlock).
Source
The data comes from the Restaurant Inspections page maintained by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. The department stopped updating its inspection results in early 2009, so the most recent inspections on EveryBlock occurred in Jan. 30, 2009.
How does the inspection process work?
The Office of Food Protection inspects food establishments for compliance with city health code. Each establishment is to be inspected once a year or after complaints from the public.
Critical violations, the only type noted on the city's Web site, prompt follow-up inspections, usually about a month later, according to the health department. Each follow-up inspection costs establishments $190.
Food establishments regulated by the Office of Food Protection include restaurants, retail food markets, food processing plants, mobile food vendors, caterers, childcare establishments, special-event food service operations, food-donation and community-based feeding programs, and food-service activities within childcare establishments, shelter operations and schools.
The city provides Regulations Governing Food Establishments.
