How restaurant inspections work in Massachusetts
Who inspects Massachusetts's restaurants, how results are graded, and how to read them on CleanPlate.
Massachusetts leaves food inspection to municipal boards of health, and CleanPlate covers the biggest of them: Boston.
Who does the inspecting
Boston's inspectional services inspect the city's food establishments; results are published in the city's open-data portal as pass/fail outcomes with full violation detail.
How results are graded
Boston reports each inspection as a pass or fail (HE_Pass / HE_Fail in the raw records) rather than a letter grade. Violations are recorded with a severity marker — a starred level indicating critical items. CleanPlate maps the results to PASS/FAIL and shows every recorded violation on the restaurant's timeline.
Reading it on CleanPlate
Every Massachusetts restaurant page on CleanPlate shows the establishment's current standing, its full inspection history with dates, and a link to the official agency behind the record. Grades are shown exactly as reported; where the source publishes no summary grade, the derived status is labeled as derived. Establishments with no inspection in over two years are treated as likely closed and excluded from search.