CityNew York City's grading system, in one minute
New York City is one of the few US cities that requires restaurants to post their health inspection grade in the front window. Since 2010, the NYC Department of Health has inspected every restaurant in the five boroughs and converted the results into a simple letter: A, B or C.
An A means the restaurant scored 0–13 violation points — an excellent inspection. A B means 14–27 points: real violations, but not the most serious. A C means 28 or more points: significant problems that the Health Department considers a public-health concern. Lower is better — points are demerits, not a score out of 100.
How inspectors assign points
NYC health inspectors work through a checklist of food-safety violations and assign points based on severity. Critical violations — food held at unsafe temperatures, evidence of mice or roaches, cross-contamination, employees not washing hands — carry more points than minor ones like a cracked floor tile or a missing thermometer.
A restaurant that avoids critical violations almost always earns an A. One or two critical violations typically push it into B territory, and multiple critical violations on a single visit usually means a C — and often a follow-up inspection.
What 'Grade Pending' means
If you see a “Grade Pending” card in a restaurant window, the restaurant scored a B or C and chose to contest the grade at an administrative hearing rather than accept it immediately. While the case is pending, the restaurant can post “Grade Pending” instead of the letter.
Grade Pending is not a grade of its own — it means the most recent inspection found enough violations for a B or C, and the final grade has not been settled yet.
Is a B-grade restaurant safe to eat at?
Generally yes — a B means the violations found were not severe enough to threaten public health on the day of inspection. What matters more than any single letter is the trend: a restaurant that holds an A across many inspections is run differently from one bouncing between B and C.
On CityGrade you can look up any NYC restaurant and read its full inspection history — every date, every score, and the specific violations behind each grade — before you decide.
What happens to C-grade restaurants
A C does not close a restaurant by itself, but it triggers increased scrutiny: more frequent inspections until the restaurant demonstrates sustained improvement. Restaurants with conditions that pose an immediate health hazard — sewage backups, no running water, severe pest infestations — can be ordered closed on the spot, and those closures appear in the public record.
How to check any NYC restaurant's grade
Search the restaurant's name on CityGrade's New York City page to see its current grade, the score behind it, and its complete inspection history. The data is synced from the NYC Department of Health's official open-data portal, which is linked from the city page for the authoritative record.