Most common restaurant inspection violations in Chicago (2026)

We counted every violation cited at routine restaurant inspections from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026, once per inspection. The share is the part of all 6,183 inspections that cited it. Item numbers are the ones on the City's inspection checklist. The City splits that checklist into foodborne illness risk factors (items 1 to 29) and good retail practices (items 30 to 63). TCS food is food that needs time and temperature control for safety.

What each one means

55 Physical facilities not maintained or clean

Floors, walls and ceilings that are dirty or damaged: missing grout or ceiling tiles, holes, dust and grease build-up, clutter or articles stored on the floor.

47 Surfaces and equipment not cleanable or in poor repair

Surfaces and equipment that are not smooth, cleanable or well built: stained cutting boards, torn cooler gaskets, foil on shelves, milk crates used as shelving.

49 Surfaces and equipment not clean

Grease, food debris or build-up on equipment, shelves and gaskets, and inside coolers and freezers.

51 Plumbing leaks or no backflow device

Leaking pipes and faucets, slow or blocked drains, or no backflow device where one is needed.

58 Allergen training missing

A manager who holds the City's sanitation certificate has no proof of the allergen training the City requires.

56 Ventilation or lighting not adequate

Dust or grease on hoods, filters and vents, burnt-out bulbs, or lights without shatter-proof covers.

38 Pests, or gaps that let pests in

Rodent droppings, live insects, or gaps at doors and walls that let pests in.

10 Hand sinks not supplied or accessible

A hand sink that is blocked, has no soap or paper towels, or has no handwashing sign.

37 Food not labeled

Bulk or repacked food stored without a label that names it, or packaged food sold without proper labeling.

39 Food not protected from contamination

Food stored on the floor or uncovered, or no splash guard between a sink and a prep table.

What to check before service in each of these areas is in the restaurant health inspection checklist.

Chicago inspectors take food temperatures on the visit. The City lists inadequate storage temperatures among its Priority violations, the ones with the $525 fine. Items 22, 21 and 20 together were cited at 476 of 6,183 routine inspections (8%). Counting every inspection type, including license and complaint inspections, the share is 7%: 750 of 10,084 inspections.

A restaurant cited in more than one group counts once in each group, so the rows add up to more than 459.

The inspector sees one visit. A log shows the days in between. On paper or in an app, these are the parts of a temperature log that matter for cold holding, hot holding and cooling:

• A reading at set times. Each cooler and hot holding unit, at the times your plan sets, for example at opening and before dinner service.
• The limit next to the reading. In Chicago, 41°F for cold holding and 135°F for hot holding.
• A corrective action for every reading out of range. What was done, and who did it.
• A name and a time on every entry. A reading is written when it is taken, not from memory at the end of the week.

Patrono keeps temperature logs and checklists in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer. Your staff enter each reading by hand. A reading out of range cannot be saved without a corrective action. A saved temperature record cannot be edited or deleted, and a correction is a new entry next to the original. Every record keeps who entered it and when, and an owner or manager can print any month's log for a location.

If you keep logs on paper, our refrigerator and freezer log, hot holding log and cooling log use the same 41°F and 135°F limits as Chicago. We email each one as a fillable PDF and a Word file.

Chicago gives each inspection one of three results, not a letter grade. From October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026, 4,004 routine inspections ended in Pass (65%), 999 in Pass with Conditions (16%) and 1,180 in Fail (19%).

Pass. No Priority or Priority Foundation violation. Core violations can still be on the report.

Pass with Conditions. At least one Priority or Priority Foundation violation, all of them corrected during the inspection.

Fail. At least one Priority or Priority Foundation violation that could not be corrected during the inspection. A Priority violation that can't be corrected right away means the license is suspended and the restaurant closes until it is fixed.

Since January 1, 2026, a citation costs $525 per Priority violation and $275 per Priority Foundation violation (Municipal Code §7-42-090), plus a $15 processing fee if you prepay or a $40 court cost. The City's FAQ says the citation is issued even if the violation is corrected during the inspection. Core violations carry no citation.

In general, risk 1 restaurants are inspected twice a year, risk 2 once a year and risk 3 every other year, unannounced. The inspector leaves a Summary Report, which you post where the public can see it.

2,241 of the 6,183 routine inspections (36%) cited at least one item from the City's list of foodborne illness risk factors.

1,843 of 6,183 routine inspections (30%) cited at least one of these three items:

• Sanitation certificate (item 2, 569 citations). A person in charge who holds the City's food service sanitation certificate must be on the premises whenever TCS food is prepared, held for service or served, and the original certificate is posted where the public can see it.
• Food handler training (item 57, 689). Food handlers without that certificate need proof of an approved food handler training program.
• Allergen training (item 58, 1,114). At a Category I restaurant, employees who hold the certificate complete approved allergen awareness training within 30 days of hire and renew it every three years.

Keep the certificates and training records in one place, and check them when someone new starts.

• Source. The Chicago Department of Public Health's Food Inspections dataset on the Chicago Data Portal, dataset 4ijn-s7e5, as of October 30, 2026, the day the City last updated its rows.
• Period. Inspections dated October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026: 12 full months, ending with the last month that had at least three weeks to settle, because the City says results are usually posted within 2 to 3 weeks of the inspection. The page reads the City's data again every day, and the 12-month period moves forward once a month.
• Restaurants. Facility type Restaurant, as the City records it, one license number per restaurant. Grocery stores, schools, bakeries, taverns and other facility types are not counted.
• Routine inspections. Canvass inspections, the City's most common type, done at a frequency set by risk, and their re-inspections. License, complaint and other inspection types are not counted, and neither are visits that ended in no entry, out of business or not ready, because nothing was inspected.
• Reading the violations. The City's data holds violations as one block of text, item by item, each starting with its checklist number and title. We count the item numbers, never the inspectors' comments. The period sits inside the numbering the City has used since July 1, 2018. An item listed more than once on a report counts once for that inspection, and we check the City's counts against our own parsing of every report in the period.
• Counting. An inspection is one license on one date with one inspection type. The City warns that its data may hold duplicate reports: 4 in this period, each counted once.
• What a violation is. The City says violations noted during an inspection are allegations that may be disputed and dismissed at the Department of Administrative Hearings, and that results reflect the findings at the time of the inspection.
• Temperature groups. Cold holding is item 22, hot holding 21, cooling 20. Items 33 and 36 are shown separately. With item 33 in the group, the share is 9%.
• Fail and other scopes. The 19% counts routine inspections. First visits alone, without re-inspections: 22% failed, 1,067 of 4,799. Every inspection type: 21% failed, 2,094 of 10,084. Counts over more years, or over only the inspections that cited a violation, give other shares.
• Rounding. Shares are rounded to the nearest whole percent from the counts shown, below 1% to one decimal.
• We never name or rank individual restaurants.

Source: City of Chicago, Chicago Department of Public Health, "Food Inspections", Chicago Data Portal, dataset 4ijn-s7e5, as of October 30, 2026. The counts, groups and labels on this page are Patrono's, not the City's.

This site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. The data provided at this site is subject to change at any time. It is understood that the data provided at this site is being used at one’s own risk.