Health Inspections

Here’s Why Philly Never Adopted Letter Grades For Restaurant Inspections

Whether or not there's a letter grade posted, mice in restaurants are gross.
Whether or not there’s a letter grade posted, mice in restaurants are gross.

Have you ever wondered why Philly’s Department of Health never adopted a letter-grading system — A,B,C,D, and F — for restaurants’ health inspections, like those assigned to food businesses in New York? In a story about the inspections process, Fox News uncovers a lot more than Cosi’s ongoing mouse problems and that Mission Grill had so many issues that inspectors shut it down for six days. Between all the torrid details of dirty and potentially hazardous conditions at some area restaurants, we also learn that there are just 36 inspectors responsible for making sure that the city’s 12,600 licensed food businesses comply with health codes.

And they only inspect restaurants once a year. Nursing homes and other “high risk locations” are checked out four times a year. It goes on say that in the first four months of this year, 49 restaurants failed food safety inspections more than three times, and that the city intends to take them all to court over it.

But what’s more interesting is, the letter grading, and why it’s not applied here. Apparently the idea was floated in Pittsburgh, but quickly quashed and rejected by the 7,000-member Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, which continues to oppose it for all restaurants throughout the state.

Mice In City Restaurants [myfoxphilly]

Here’s Why Philly Never Adopted Letter Grades For Restaurant Inspections