What Grayte tracks
Grayte tracks San Diego County restaurant health closures and reopenings — what closed, why, how often, and when it reopened. It is a record of what the County published, kept in one place and made readable.
Public history begins January 1, 2024. Inspections before that date exist in the County’s own system, but Grayte’s closure record starts there and says so on every surface that counts closures.
Where the data comes from
Every inspection, grade, score and violation on this site comes from the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health and Quality (DEHQ), published at sdfoodinfo.org. Grayte does not inspect anything and does not add findings of its own.
The County inspects more than 14,000 retail food facilities on a routine basis to monitor compliance with the California Retail Food Code. Those results are public record under the California Public Records Act.
Grayte checks the County feed every day and preserves each inspection it finds. The County adds inspections as they are completed, typically within a few business days of the visit, so a very recent inspection may not have been published yet.
How closures and reopenings are interpreted
The County publishes individual inspection events. A single closure usually produces several of them. Grayte groups those events into one closure episode, so a restaurant that was closed once reads as closed once rather than three times.
- An Ordered Closed or Self Closed inspection opens an episode, or continues one that is already open.
- A further Ordered Closed while an episode is open generally belongs to that same episode — it is the same closure being re-checked, not a new one.
- An Approved to Reopen inspection ends the episode. It is the only thing that does.
This is deliberately not the same as listing County events one after another. Listing events answers “what inspections happened”. Grouping them answers “how many times has this restaurant been closed”, which is the question the site exists to answer.
What “No reopening recorded” means
It means exactly what it says: the County has not published an Approved to Reopen inspection for that closure. Nothing more.
It does not mean the restaurant is still closed. A reopening may have happened and not yet been published, or been recorded in a way Grayte did not receive. Grayte never reads a silence as a fact, and never infers that a restaurant is currently open or currently closed from the absence of a record.
What the grades mean
Scores and letter grades are the County’s, not Grayte’s. They describe the inspection on the date shown.
- A — 90 to 100. Satisfactory compliance with state law, and the expected result for a well-run facility.
- B — 80 to 89. Violations that need correcting. Often followed by a re-inspection within 14 to 30 days.
- C — 79 or below. Serious violations. May result in a closure order until violations are corrected and a re-inspection passes.
Where Grayte shows a restaurant’s latest grade it uses the most recent routine inspection that carries a score. Re-inspections usually carry no grade, so using the newest inspection of any kind would frequently show nothing at all.
Violations and corrections
A violation shown here was observed by a County inspector on the date listed. Many violations are corrected on the spot or immediately afterwards. The inspection record remains what it was on that date either way, and Grayte keeps the County’s own wording for each violation rather than rewriting it.
What Grayte does not claim
- That a restaurant is open or closed right now. Grayte reports records, not current status.
- That a restaurant is safe or unsafe. An A is not a guarantee and an old violation is not an accusation.
- Any affiliation with San Diego County or DEHQ. Grayte is independent and is not a government service.
- That the record is complete. See below.
Limitations worth knowing
- Grayte can only show what the County publishes. If a record is late, amended or absent upstream, it is late, amended or absent here.
- An inspection describes one day. It is evidence about that day and weak evidence about any other.
- Grayte publishes standalone restaurants. Mobile food, caterers, home kitchens, retail food and institutional facilities are inspected by the County but are not part of this record.
- Closure counts are counts of episodes since January 1, 2024, not of a restaurant’s entire history.
Found something wrong?
Check the original record at sdfoodinfo.org first. If the County’s record is right and Grayte is showing it wrong, that is our mistake — tell us and we will fix it.
If the official inspection record itself is wrong, only the County can correct it. DEHQ can be reached at 858-505-6900 or fhdutyeh@sdcounty.ca.gov, Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 4:30pm.
Grayte is an independent site. It is not affiliated with San Diego County, DEHQ or any government agency, and nothing here is legal, medical or public-health advice. See the full disclaimer.