Making the Grade

I have to give a pat on the back to the New York City Department of Health for their new initiative and regulations regarding a grading system for our restaurants.

I am sure everyone has heard and seen that most of our local restaurants are now donning a legal-letter-sized "report card" in their windows. I had no idea what the whole thing was about until a few weeks after I started seeing them more frequently. I was compelled to post about it when I was trying to figure out lunch and one of my kids said, "we can't go there....they got a C".

I was noticing that most places had A's. I have only ever seen one C, in fact.....and 2 B's. To tell the truth, I was pretty surprised about a few of the A grades. I have been to more than one of these "honor roll" places and have experienced some things that would not deem them worthy of such high regard! At that point, I decided to do a little research about the standards set to grade our establishments against.

My short research led me to the Department of Health's website in a section all its own. The page explained that ALL of NYC's restaurants will eventually be graded in such a manner. The facility is inspected and points for violations are added up. 0-13 points is an A. 14-27 is a B, and more than 28 is a C. It is not clear as to how many points a place can accumulate before being cited or closed. I suppose the 13 points gives each restaurant a cushion to fall on for small violations.....but small ones could potentially add up fast! The seriousness of the violations is what could give more points too. A public health hazard is worth 7 points, so a restaurant with 2 counts of a public health hazard(like food at bad temps)could be eliminated very quickly from getting an A. Any restaurant that gets a C will continue to be assessed monthly until the grade gets better or the facility is closed for unimproved violations. Sounds fair to me. If I were a business owner, I would appreciate the chance for improvement and the potential bragging rights of an A.

What do I mean by bragging rights? The DOH website also offers a Search for Restaurant Inspection. On this page, a person could search for a particular restaurant's grade....down to the points! You can even put a borough, a zip code, and/or a particular cuisine in to search. And why not select only the ones with an A or B grade? You can do that from this page too. Definitely a good idea if you are trying a place out for the first time, or venturing to a new neighborhood.

I think I might try a few new places now that I can search for them so easily. The "by cuisine" option will be a good one for my family. As a matter of fact, I had no idea we even HAD Australian cuisine anywhere on the Upper East Side. We learn something new every day, I suppose. I think we have an advantage now that we never had before. Although the inspection reports of restaurants could be found, it was never this easy. Never. Now, since it is easier than ever, our restaurants will be held to higher standards. If they can not meet those standards set by the departments that are in place to protect and help us, then at the very least, we will see it very clearly if the have a C.