TL;DR: Restaurants get a routine inspection about once a year, and the inspector does not call ahead. A food complaint on 311 moves your restaurant to the front of the line. In Chicago, about 70% of complaints bring an inspector within 30 days, and half arrive within a week. In New York City, complaints double the chance of a visit.
This report uses public Chicago and New York City records.
How often do restaurants get inspected?
If someone files a 311 complaint about your kitchen, you have about 8 days before an inspector walks in depending on the last visit time. A failed visit costs you a posted grade, a re-inspection, and in New York City fines that start in the hundreds of dollars per violation.
You can see what someone has filed against your address on our free New York City 311 lookup or Chicago 311 lookup, or pick your city from the 311 complaints hub.
Restaurants get inspected on a routine cycle of about once a year, set by the local health department, and the cycle differs by city.
| City | Routine cycle | Who sets it |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | At least once a year; sooner after a B or C grade | Department of Health and Mental Hygiene |
| Chicago | 1 to 3 times a year by risk level; the inspector sets the level from the food served and how it is prepared | Department of Public Health |
We measured how each cycle plays out in the records. The table shows the chance that a restaurant with no recent complaint gets a routine visit in the next 90 days. The first column is the month since the last visit.
| Months since last routine inspection | New York City | Chicago |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 3 | 2% | 5% |
| 3 to 6 | 4% | 9% |
| 6 to 9 | 5% | 18% |
| 9 to 12 | 11% | 48% |
| 12 to 24 | 34% | 24% |
In Chicago, half of the restaurants get a visit at the 9-to-12-month mark.
New York runs late. Most kitchens get the annual visit late in the first year or during the second.
If you run locations in both cities, you must carry two reminders. A Chicago location at month 10 has a 48% chance of a visit this quarter. A New York location at month 10 sits at 11%, and that rises to 34% once it crosses a year.
Are health inspections random?
Health inspections are random in the exact day, but not in the odds - time since your last visit sets most of the probability, and an open complaint raises it.
We tested this by training a model to predict whether a restaurant would be inspected in the next 90 days. Given only timing facts, such as days since the last visit and the last score, it reached an AUC of 0.80 in New York and 0.69 in Chicago.
A model that knew only about 311 complaints scored 0.52 and 0.59, which is about the same as guessing. Neither model names the day.
What happens after someone reports a restaurant?
After someone reports a restaurant in Chicago, an inspector shows up within 30 days about 70% of the time, and the median wait is 8 days.
This is contradictory to what many believe. A top Reddit answer to this question says nothing happens until a restaurant piles up complaints. Chicago's records say otherwise.
Chicago labels complaint-driven inspections as their own type, so we matched each 311 Restaurant Complaint to what followed at that address.
| After a 311 restaurant complaint in Chicago | |
|---|---|
| Complaint inspection within 30 days, 2021 to 2025 | 64% to 73% each year |
| Median days until the inspector arrives | 8 |
| Within 4 days | 25% |
| Within 7 days | 48% |
| Within 38 days | 90% |
Over half of Chicago's complaint inspections had a 311 complaint at that address in the prior 30 days. Most restaurants enter that queue through the 311 line.
A complaint raises the odds no matter how long it has been since your last routine inspection. For a Chicago restaurant, the chance of a complaint inspection in the next 90 days is 1 to 3% with no recent 311 report and 19 to 26% with one. One complaint raises the odds about 8 times.
New York does not give complaint visits their own label, so the same test is blurrier there. Even so, a Food Establishment complaint at a single-restaurant building doubles the chance of a mid-cycle visit, from about 5% to 10%.
Which complaints trigger a health inspection?
The complaints that trigger a health inspection are the ones the health department receives - food complaints, and not the rest.
We checked rodent, noise, smoking and sanitation complaints at the same addresses, and none of them changed the inspection rate. A Food Establishment or Restaurant Complaint did, because the health department is the agency that gets it.
Both New York City and Chicago route those complaints through 311. That is why the 311 feed predicts anything at all, and why you can read it before the inspector does.
What this means if you run the restaurant
If you run the restaurant, a 311 complaint gives you about a week's notice of an inspection, and you should use it.
A 311 complaint about your restaurant is public within a day of filing. In Chicago, more often than not, an inspector walks in within 2 weeks. You have that long to fix the thing before anyone arrives.
3 habits worth keeping:
- Check your address. Search it on the New York City or Chicago 311 page, or find your city on the 311 complaints hub, and read the food complaints. Owners with more than one location check each address, since a complaint names one storefront, not the business.
- Know where each location is in the cycle. Past 12 months since the last routine visit, expect the inspector any week. Each location has its own last-visit date and its own clock.
- Keep the paperwork where you can find it. An inspector asks for the permit, the food protection certificate and the last report. So does a lender, a landlord and the state.
How we measured
We measured this by pulling the public 311 complaint feeds and restaurant inspection records for New York City and Chicago and matching each complaint to the inspections at the same address.
Fernway tracks your permits and licenses for each location and reads these same 311 and inspection records to tell you when a visit is likely. You get one list across cities instead of one portal per city. Get started free, or check your address on the New York City or Chicago 311 lookup, or any other city on the 311 complaints hub.
Questions
How often do restaurants get inspected?
About once a year for a routine visit, in the 2 cities we measured. New York City schedules every restaurant at least once every 12 months, sooner after a B or C grade. Chicago visits 1 to 3 times a year depending on risk level. The records show New York often runs into the second year, while Chicago stays close to its calendar.
Are restaurant health inspections random?
No. Two things decide the timing: the department's routine cycle, and complaints. In our data, timing facts alone predicted the next inspection well, and complaints added a smaller, specific set of visits on top of the schedule.
What happens after you report a restaurant to the health department?
In Chicago, a 311 restaurant complaint at a known restaurant led to a complaint inspection within 30 days between 64 and 73% of the time in every year from 2021 to 2025. The median wait was 8 days, and a quarter of visits came within 4 days.
Does a 311 complaint trigger a health inspection?
A food complaint does, where the city routes food complaints through 311. In Chicago a single 311 restaurant complaint raised the chance of a complaint inspection in the next 90 days from 1 to 3% to 19 to 26%. Rodent, noise and smoking complaints at the same address did not change the inspection rate.
How do I see 311 complaints about my restaurant?
Search your address on the city's open data portal or on Fernway's free 311 lookup pages for New York City and Chicago. Food complaints appear within about a day of filing and name the problem reported.
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