About restaurant inspections
Summary
There are thousands of permitted food establishments in Seattle — including restaurants, food and espresso carts, coffee shops, delis and the fresh food sections of grocery stores — which the health department inspects regularly. In this section of EveryBlock, we publish recent inspection results, so you can find out what violations, if any, occurred at establishments near you.
In most cases, inspectors come unannounced and inspect restaurants twice a year. Each inspection report includes the location and date the inspection occurred, the establishment's name, what violations (if any) occurred and what type of inspection was conducted. This last category can either be a routine inspection or a follow-up — performed within two weeks of an inspection that found a critical violation or at the discretion of the inspector.
Please note that because of the way the health department presents its data, we at EveryBlock can only show violations noted by inspectors. We can't say whether a restaurant passed or failed the inspection.
Source
The data comes from the Food Protection Program's Restaurant Inspections Online published by Public Health — Seattle and King County. The database is updated almost every day, though usually not on weekends. We at EveryBlock retrieve data each day, though the results are usually a few days behind.
What happens when a restaurant has to close?
When a restaurant is forced to close because of a failed inspection, it can reopen only when it has fixed the problems that led to the closure, submitted a plan of correction to prevent recurrences and has been reinspected. You can see a list of restaurant closures at the Food establishment closures in King County page.
