New York Restaurants Must Display Report Cards
By wchung | 30 Apr, 2025

New York City’s 24,000 restaurants — from its internationally known eateries on down to its most modest pizza counters — will have to display large letter grades near their entrances indicating how clean they are under a system approved Tuesday.

The best will get an A, according to the system approved by the city Board of Health.

Officials say the grading system is designed to give potential customers instant access to information about where they are about to eat.

“The grade in the window will give you a sense of how clean the kitchen is, and it will give every restaurant operator an incentive to maintain safe, sanitary conditions,” Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said in a statement.

Some other cities use similar rating systems. Los Angeles grades its restaurants with A for scores of 90 to 100 percent, B for 80 to 89 percent and C for 70 to 79 percent. A restaurant that scores under 70 percent twice in a year is subject to closure.

Critics have called the system gimmicky and unfair.

“They’re doing a disservice to the public,” said Marc Murphy, a vice president of the New York State Restaurant Association and the owner and chef at the Manhattan restaurants Landmarc and Ditch Plains.

The letter grading system will only serve to embarrass restaurateurs without giving the public a true picture of the establishment’s cleanliness, he said.

Other critics charge that grades could change from week to week on the whims of a city inspector, and that even a B could be fatal to some fine-dining establishments.

“Two flies can get you cited for a rodent violation,” Murphy said. He predicted that the new system “will hurt our reputation as the restaurant capital of the world.”

But celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, owner of Craft and other restaurants, said the system was a good idea.

“I think anything that is going encourage people to clean up their act and protect the public is a good thing overall,” he said.

New York officials say that after Los Angeles began its letter grading system for restaurants, the proportion of restaurants that met the highest standards rose from 40 percent to more than 80 percent.

The details of New York’s system are still being finalized, but the proposal called for grades A through C, based on demerit points accumulated by violations.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he’d prefer to eat at a restaurant with an A.

“I think you’re going to find that most restaurants will get to the A status, which is the idea,” he said.

The health department says that most of the restaurants it inspects each year maintain good or excellent health conditions, but that about a quarter of them have “significant lapses in food-safety practices.”

Officials say that about 30 percent of the city’s restaurants would qualify for an A, 40 percent a B and 26 percent a C.

New York City’s restaurant inspection reports are already posted online, but officials said posting the information in restaurant doors and windows prevents diners from having to search for it.

The plan approved Tuesday — after a public hearing and monthlong open comment period — gives restaurants that receive grades lower than an A time to improve their sanitary conditions before they have to post anything.

For those eateries, the health department will return within a month to conduct a second inspection, and the second grade will be posted unless the restaurant operator contests it at the department’s administrative tribunal.

Those restaurants will be allowed to post a sign that says “grade pending” while the matter is being appealed.

The health board vote was 6-2. One of the two board members who voted against it was Bruce Vladeck, an expert on health care policy and financing.

He called the system “misguided” and “intellectually incoherent” and said restaurants should be graded on a pass-fail basis.

“This is show and tell that is unlikely to have significant benefits,” he said.

The new regulations do not cover the city’s mobile food carts.

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Associated Press writers David B. Caruso and Adam Goldman contributed to this report.

SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK