Food Establishment Inspection Reports

serving foodWant to know how your favorite restaurant handles food safety? You can read inspection reports for local food establishments. These reports give you information on the conditions we saw at the time of inspection. Reports may not reflect corrective actions the establishment made, or the current condition.

Look up Health Inspection Reports
Food establishments include:

  • Restaurants
  • Grocery stores
  • Delis
  • Convenience stores
  • Bars
  • Worksite cafeterias
  • Coffee shops
  • Ice cream shops
  • Catering kitchens
  • Private organizations serving the public.

They can be permanent, mobile, or seasonal.

Understanding Health Inspection Reports

Routine Inspection: Performed at least once a year at restaurant or retail food stores. They are usually unannounced. A health inspector looks at how food is handled, the temperature of food, and the hygiene and health of employees. Sometimes we schedule inspections to make sure the proper staff will be there.

Reinspection: Performed to follow up on health code violations that were found on the routine inspection.

Inspection reports include:

  • The restaurant or retail food store name
  • Address
  • Inspection date
  • Type of inspection (i.e. routine or reinspection)
  • Wisconsin Food Code number and section
  • What the health inspector observed
  • The actions needed to correct the violation

Tools to understand inspections

Understanding Violations

The five most common violations that cause foodborne illness outbreaks are:

  • Keeping hot or cold food at the wrong temperature
  • Cooking food at the wrong temperature
  • Dirty utensils and equipment
  • Poor employee health and hygiene
  • Food from unsafe sources

Priority violations must be corrected immediately, or within a few days. If not fixed properly, they are more likely to cause foodborne illness. If they cannot be permanently corrected during the inspection, we will do a reinspection.

Core violations relate to cleaning and maintenance. Some examples are dirty floors and plumbing leaks.   

"Repeat" means the violation was seen and documented on previous routine inspection reports.

"Corrected Onsite" means the violation was corrected during the routine inspection. A reinspection may still be needed even if the violation was corrected onsite.

Please note: When interpreting a report, try not to focus on the number of violations cited, but on the types of violations. Keep in mind that some priority violations may increase the risk for foodborne illness.

We do not score or grade health inspections.