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Food

Restaurant Letter Grading Rules Are Now Set in Stone

By

John Del Signore

Published Jun 15, 2010

Modified Jun 15, 2010

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By

John Del Signore

Published Jun 15, 2010

Modified Jun 15, 2010

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It's really happening, the moment restaurateurs have long been dreading: After a month-long comment period, the DOH has finalized the rules for the new letter grading system. Despite warnings from some of the city's 24,000 food-service establishments that the system will drive them out of business, the DOH is determined to make sure diners know how sanitary their experience will be. As an experiment, we checked some current big-name restaurants (plus our local favorites) to see what they'd score if the grades were assigned today.

The Health Department says that "under the now final rules, a restaurant receiving 0 to 13 violation points on an initial inspection would receive a grade of A, which would be posted immediately. Those with more points would get a chance to improve their scores on a re-inspection conducted a short time later. Those scoring 14 to 27 points on the Re-inspection would get Bs, and those with 28 or more would get Cs. If a restaurant wants to contest a B or C grade, it can post sign that says Grading Pending until it has had a chance to be heard at the Health Department’s Administrative Tribunal."

The first graded inspections will occur in late July, and it will take a little over a year for the Health Department to issue grades to all NYC restaurants.

Tagged

health department

inspection

letter grading

restaurant letter grading

John Del Signore

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Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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