Fast-food chains in New York State, by state inspection records

What stands out

This is the state without its biggest city. New York City, Suffolk County and Erie County run their own inspection systems, and the state leaves them out of its file. What remains is the rest of the state, from Westchester and Nassau to the Canadian border. New York City has its own page, counted under the city’s rules; the two pages count different things.

The comparison is wider than restaurants. The 25.1% figure covers everything permitted as a food service establishment: restaurants, and also delis, bakeries, taverns and caterers. Counties label these differently (some never use the word restaurant), so we could not separate restaurants out. Schools, camps, institutions and feeding programmes are a separate type in the file and are left out.

17 of the 18 charted chains are clearly under that rate. Jersey Mike's is the exception: its range includes the 25.1% rate, so we cannot say it records a critical violation more or less often than an ordinary establishment. No chain is clearly over.

Four chains sit well under the rest. Five Guys, Taco Bell, Starbucks and Arby's have ranges that end below 9.0%, the lowest plausible rate for KFC, the chain in the middle of the table. Among themselves their ranges overlap, and the records do not support any order.

Dunkin' has the most inspections by a distance. With 2,816 on file its range runs from 7.6% to 9.7%, the narrowest on the page. It is the figure here that can be read most closely.

Many inspectors, not one. These inspections are carried out by county and city health departments and by state district offices, and the department says it does not audit them. A chain concentrated in a few counties is mostly being seen by those counties’ inspectors. The state rate mixes all of them, and so does every figure on this page.

Just under the line. Dairy Queen (88), Papa John's (84), Shake Shack (78) and Sonic (71) are short of the 100 inspections we require and are listed without a bar.

Analysis written September 2026. The figures in it are read from the current records, so they move when the records do.

How inspections work in New York State

The state Department of Health writes the rules, in Part 14 of the State Sanitary Code. County and city health departments issue the permits and do the inspecting; the department says its nine district offices do the same in twenty-one counties that have no environmental health programme of their own.

Each violation is either red or blue. In the department’s words, red “critical” violations “relate directly to factors that could lead to foodborne illness,” and blue “non-critical” violations “do not directly cause food-borne illness but could negatively affect the operation of the restaurant.” This page counts inspections with at least one red violation. There is no score and no letter grade, and the department says this data “was not collected in a manner intended for use as a restaurant grading system.”

How often a place is inspected depends on its risk category. The department says that “generally, high risk facilities are inspected twice per year, medium risk facilities are inspected once per year and low risk facilities are inspected every other year.” It names places that prepare food to order, “such as pizza, hamburgers and sandwiches,” as typical medium risk, and “bars and coffee shops” as typical low risk. So how many inspections a chain has on this page depends on its risk category as well as on how many locations it has.

The file holds establishments that are operating now. One that has closed moves to a separate file along with its inspections, so closed restaurants are missing from these counts, for chains and for the state rate alike. The department also notes that how much history each county supplies may vary.

How these figures are made

1. Source. Food Service Establishment Inspections: Beginning 2005 (Active), published by the New York State Department of Health.
2. What counts. Only inspections of permitted food service establishments; re-inspections are left out, as are schools, camps, institutions and feeding programmes. Inspectors go back to restaurants that already had a problem, so counting return visits would stack the numbers.
3. The figure. For each chain, the number of those inspections that recorded at least one critical (red) violation, divided by all of them. “All food service establishments” is the same sum over everything in the file, chains included.
4. The range. A 95% Wilson score interval. If we could rerun the same period many times, the true rate would land inside a range built this way about 19 times in 20. Fewer inspections means a wider range.
5. The minimum. A chain needs 100 counted inspections to be charted. Below that it is listed with its count and no bar.
6. Matching names to chains. Restaurant names are matched to chains with a published table of name patterns (version 2026-09-20.4). A location recorded under two chain names, such as a combined KFC and Taco Bell, is counted for neither. If a match is wrong, write to hello@fastfoodfact.com and it will be corrected.
7. Reuse. The department asks that the data be used for statistical reporting and analysis only, and that the author state that the conclusions are the author's own. That statement is below.

The full method, including the formula for the range, is on the methodology page.

Who inspects, the risk categories, inspection frequency and the red and blue definitions: NYSDOH, Food Service Establishment Inspection Data Overview (PDF). The places left out, the grading-system statement and the active-only scope are stated on the dataset’s page, linked above. The overview also lists Orange County as left out; the dataset’s page does not, and Orange County inspections are in the file, so they are counted. We count rows typed “Inspection” and leave out “Re-Inspection”. Those are the only two types in the file, so a visit that followed a complaint is not marked separately; if it was typed “Inspection” it is counted.

The analyses, interpretations and conclusions drawn from New York State data on this site were reached by FastFoodFact and not by the New York State Department of Health. The department states that this data was not collected for use as a restaurant grading system and does not support or endorse such a use; the figures here describe groups of inspections and are not a grade of any restaurant.

What this does not show

• Management quality on its own. Chains differ in what they handle. A coffee counter deals with far less raw food than a kitchen that fries chicken, so part of any gap between chains is the menu.
• Anything about one restaurant. A figure describes that chain’s locations in New York State over this period. It is not a statement about the brand elsewhere and not a warning about the one near you.
• Every restaurant equally. Inspections are scheduled by risk and by past results, so a restaurant with problems is visited more often and appears more often in these counts. That holds for chains and for all food service establishments alike.
• How New York State compares with anywhere else. Each place counts a different event under different rules. These figures only make sense next to other figures from New York State.

Informational only. These are public records, summarized; they are not a safety rating of any restaurant and not professional advice. Last reviewed: September 2026.