It’s a little freaky when you walk by a food establishment that you frequent, and there is a large sticker on the door that says, “CLOSED BY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH”. This, thankfully, did not happen to me yesterday since I don’t eat at “New York City Bagel” on 64th and Second, but once I got home, I immediately logged onto the NYC Department of Health’s Restaurant Inspection Information website and checked out their violations.

They had the whopping score of 97, the ninth worst score in the city (as of today). Their violations included, “Single service item reused, improperly stored, dispensed; not used when required”, “Milk or milk product undated, improperly dated or expired”, and the dreaded “Evidence of flying insects or live flying insects present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas”.

This is not to single out New York City Bagel, but rather to point out what a useful resource the above site is. You can search by restaurant name, neighborhood, violation points, and it even lists the restaurants that have won Golden Apples. For a restaurant to get a Golden Apple, they have to have no major violations and a score of less than 8 for two inspections in a row. I invite everyone to take a look at how their favorite eating establishments rate, but don’t blame me if you can’t eat there anymore after seeing their score and violations.