Meredith Pollack feature draft

Meredith Pollack
New York City Restaurant Grading System First Draft


The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is nearing the one year anniversary of implementing advertised grades of the more than 24,000 restaurants in the city. The announcement came in June 2010, that not only would inspectors be coming around for their annual surprise visits to food establishments, but they would be grading the restaurants on their performance giving them an A, B, or C. To recieve an A, a restaurant must have between 0 and 13 violations, for a B, 14 - 27 violations, and for a C, 28 or more violations. Restaurants are also allowed to plead their cases and change their grades in front of Health Department’s Administrative Tribunal, which is when you see out front of a restaurant that their grade is pending.

The advertising of the grades in store windows is what has some restaurant owners upset even now a year later. The Department of Health has very strict guidelines as to where these grade placards must be posted. According to a letter grading FAQ posted online by Thomas Farley, the commissioner of the NYC Department of health, “The grade (or grade pending) card must be posted on a front window, door or outside wall where it is
easily seen by people passing by. The card must be within 5 feet of the entrance and from 4 to 6 feet off the ground or floor. “

The Department of Health clearly states in this same FAQ form that the reason for this is strictly for the consumer and their safety. However, the violations that inspectors are grading on have hardly been changed since the displaying of grades. They make it clear that grades are only based on food and consumer safety, and have nothing to do with the dining atmosphere or the quality of the food served in the restaurant. With an overwhelming support of the public, who are thankful for now knowing where not to eat, this concerns the restaurateurs who have performed consistently at a B or even C level without complaints.

The angry owners however are not just the ones who are getting shut down for the absurdly high amount of violations that would call for doing so, but even executive chefs as well known as Marc Murphy, the owner of three Manhattan restaurants. In a widely circulated statement that he made last year, he expressed his deep concerns with how the grading system will effect the choices that consumers make. He says, “What I find most frustrating about this proposal is the arbitrary nature of its content. For example, if this is really about keeping the public safe, then why aren’t food carts, hospitals and school cafeterias included in this letter grading initiative? And if this is, as the DOH says, a way of informing the public about restaurant cleanliness, then will it take the human error factor into consideration? “

He goes on to express concern about the personal nature of inspection that is never seen by the public. He says that human error will not be accounted for, expressing distrust in inspectors as the same one will rarely come twice, and will often look over things that others will count as violations. He also believes that things other than food safety should be accounted for in the letter grading as well.

{dont really know what to do with this segment} Dan Richardson, the afternoon manager of Vinnie’s Pizza on Bedford Ave. in Brooklyn says that he’s not sure how he feels about the grading just yet. “As far as business goes I don’t think we’ve really been affected. The fans of our pizza are pretty loyal.” he said with a small laugh of hesitation. Vinnie’s is located on a busy street just off the subway. In the two and a half blocks from the Bedford Avenue L Station, there are three cafes, two bars, another pizza place, and two restaurants, all displaying big blue A’s in their window fronts. Vinnie’s Pizza displays a grade pending sign. “We’re working on an appeal in front of the board right now I guess... but that’s all I’m willing to say about that,” says Richardson. }

While the Department of Health sees this as a positive aspect of their grading system, it does appear to be flawed. When a hungry consumer walks by a restaurant with a large lettered placard amongst the menu’s in the front window, they may be led to believe that this grade defines the restaurant as a whole, including the taste and quality of the food, and the safety of things such as wiring and even structural soundness of the restaurant itself.