Health Dept. letter grades

Reading this post today about the closing of Hai Yen got me wondering again why Chicago doesn't apply letter grades to restaurants. Does anyone have any insight into this? Is there data that says what effect the letter grades have on the overall cleanliness of a community? My intuition says that in a densely restaurant-populated area like Argyle Street, the competition factor would compel all the establishments to strive for an A. Or maybe the letter grades impart a false sense of security in consumers.

I don't have any firm opinions on this, just hoping to get a dialog started.

I think the letter grades in LA (CA generally) are helpful albeit only at a high level. It is odd to see a crappy paper letter grade in the window of a very fancy restuarant, but it happens. I'd think anything below "A" at an upscale place or a hotel dining room would be death.

On the other hand, I would guess that many of the board favorites here would fall solidly into the "B" category, which is fine by me. We can't all be the valedictorian, and "B" doesn't mean unhealthy as far as I can tell.

tapler wrote:Is there data that says what effect the letter grades have on the overall cleanliness of a community?

I love it when people ask about data. Yes, there is a study about it:

Ginger Jin and Phillip Leslie, "The Effects of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards," Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2003, Volume 118, Number 2, pp. 409-51.

Abstract:

This study examines the effect of an increase in product quality information to consumers on firms' choices of product quality. In 1998 Los Angeles County introduced hygiene quality grade cards to be displayed in restaurant windows. We show that the grade cards cause (i) restaurant health inspection scores to increase, (ii) consumer demand to become sensitive to changes in restaurants' hygiene quality, and (iii) the number of foodborne illness hospitalizations to decrease. We also provide evidence that this improvement in health outcomes is not fully explained by consumers substituting from poor hygiene restaurants to good hygiene restaurants. These results imply that the grade cards cause restaurants to make hygiene quality improvements.

You can download the study from one of the authors' website:
http://www.stanford.edu/~pleslie/

Leslie also has a few other related studies on his website, including this non-technical paper:
"The Case in Support of Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards"

JeffB wrote:I think the letter grades in LA (CA generally) are helpful albeit only at a high level. It is odd to see a crappy paper letter grade in the window of a very fancy restuarant, but it happens. I'd think anything below "A" at an upscale place or a hotel dining room would be death.

On the other hand, I would guess that many of the board favorites here would fall solidly into the "B" category, which is fine by me. We can't all be the valedictorian, and "B" doesn't mean unhealthy as far as I can tell.

I rarely see anything below an "A" in LA. I also find that the grades do not necessarily correspond with the "spiffiness" of the establishment. But I find the grade cards to be somewhat reassuring (although they do not, in and of themselves, tell me anything specific). In those gray area situations, the grade cards at least are somewhat illuminating. For instance, if the restaurant is graded a "B," and looks dingy, then I'm not likely to eat there. But if it's kind of dingy and graded an "A," I'll go for it with peace of mind.

Here, unless you periodically check the City's inspection reports online, there is no telling what you're getting into because the back of the house, where the violations normally occur, is visually off-limits.

I've always thought highly of the California grading system and would love to see something similar implemented here in Chicago. ("Hello! Any Chicago food inspectors read this board?") I'm not surprised with the study results, and think that most restaurants with a B grade would be pressured (via a corresponding decrease in sales) to beef up their adherance to the standards.

tapler wrote: Is there data that says what effect the letter grades have on the overall cleanliness of a community? .

Darren72 wrote:Yes, there is a study about it:

Ginger Jin and Phillip Leslie, "The Effects of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards," Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2003, Volume 118, Number 2, pp. 409-51.

Now, that's what I call good service! Thanks for the links.

I was just having this discussion with a friend last week. I miss the system in the city I moved here from--every week, the results of the previous week's inspections were posted in the newspaper--number of critical and non-critical violations, or no violations at all. If there were any critical violations, those were detailed. It definitely gave me a good sense of whether the restaurant had the type of problems I'd be willing to overlook, or whether I should steer clear (i.e., Hai Yen, which has been giving me the willies since I read it this afternoon).

I don't know if that system would work well for Chicago, since it's obviously a much larger restaurant community, but we definitely need more transparency here.

Here you can view the inspection details of any food establishment in the city. To see the detailed report, click on the name of the restaurant in the list of summaries. Hai Yen's last inspection was in January and only 6 minor violations were found.

http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/health/inspection.jsp

d4v3 wrote:Here you can view the inspection details of any food establishment in the city. To see the detailed report, click on the name of the restaurant in the list of summaries. Hai Yen's last inspection was in January and only 6 minor violations were found.

http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/health/inspection.jsp

As I've stated, the problem with that is that you have to actually go to the website, type in the name of the restaurant and pull the results prior to visiting that restaurant. Who would possibly do that for every restaurant they visit?

In LA, the grade is in the window of the restaurant, which consequently takes very little effort to find and make an on-the-spot decision about going in, if need be.

The problem with the grade system is that you don't know if a certain grade is a result of many minor violations or one or two major violations. Also if a restaurant receives a "C" because they have one major infraction and one minor infraction, but all they need to fix is the minor infraction to get a "B", then they will concentrate on fixing the minor violation rather than the serious one that poses a greater health risk. Moreover, many restaurants get written up for things that are beyond their reasonable control like the type of walls and floors they have. For instance, brick walls are considered a minor violation because they are harder to clean. In Chicago, violations are classified as critical, serious or minor. All critical infractions must be fixed at the time of the inspection or the restaurant is shut down. This gives the inspectors a chance to educate the owners on how to fix the serious problems and avoid future violations, while giving them time to fix the minor problems that don't pose a great health risk (like bright lighting in the dish washing area). Personally, I think the Chicago system works pretty well. The big problem is that there are not enough inspectors to keep up with the scheduled inspections.

d4v3 wrote:The problem with the grade system is that you don't know if a certain grade is a result of many minor violations or one or two major violations. Also if a restaurant receives a "C" because they have one major infraction and one minor infraction, but all they need to fix is the minor infraction to get a "B", then they will concentrate on fixing the minor violation rather than the serious one that poses a greater health risk. Moreover, many restaurants get written up for things that are beyond their reasonable control like the type of walls and floors they have. For instance, brick walls are considered a minor violation because they are harder to clean. In Chicago, violations are classified as critical, serious or minor. All critical infractions must be fixed at the time of the inspection or the restaurant is shut down. This gives the inspectors a chance to educate the owners on how to fix the serious problems and avoid future violations, while giving them time to fix the minor problems that don't pose a great health risk (like bright lighting in the dish washing area). Personally, I think the Chicago system works pretty well. The big problem is that there are not enough inspectors to keep up with the scheduled inspections.

How the infractions are classified is a different issue. We're not talking about whether Chicago's classification of infractions as "critical, serious or minor" is inferior. What is deemed inferior by some, myself included, is the lack of publicity of the classification and the understanding by the public of what the classification means. So, let's say, for the sake of argument, you assign "A" for no violations, "B" for minor violations, "C" for for serious violations and "D" or "F" is for critical violations, and in each storefront window, you post a placard publicizing the current rating. In that case, I don't think Chicago would need to necessarily change the way they inspect restaurants, except, as you say, to hire more inspectors.

Now, some people may be more nervous about eating at a "B" restaurant, and others may shrug their shoulders. But either way, it balances out, I believe, and it gives the restaurant owner an incentive to improve.

Related story about food safety problems at the Taste:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 9163.story

HI,

What's interesting on the Taste issue is how this is the first problem in 20 years and still a very small population affected considering the visitor volume. At Maxwell Street, there is a very obvious presence of health inspectors roaming the market. The health inspectors vigilence at these outdoor events I'm sure contributes to the overall food safety records of these venues.

Regards,

I've been living out here for almost seven years now. I've never changed my eating habits because of the letter grade system. I have, however, decided a place squicks me out, and dropped it from my rotation.

It's not unheard-of for establishments to post a fake letter grade. Usually, this practice is closely examined during local news sweeps week!

Cathy2 wrote:What's interesting on the Taste issue is how this is the first problem in 20 years and still a very small population affected considering the visitor volume.

You're right, Cathy - years ago I took the Chicago Food Sanitation Exam and I was amazed at how stringent the standards were (this is just to get a license to be in an outdoor event, not the follow-up inspections.) as compared to the requirements for the suburbs.