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Restaurant inspections in New Jersey

Who inspects, where the record lives, what the public actually sees, and whether it has to be posted on the door. Every line below links to the government source it came from.

Color placard Run county by county Required to be posted
  • 01

    Who inspects

    Delegated to local health authorities; NJDOH's Retail Food Project maintains N.J.A.C. 8:24 and directs restaurants to their Local Health Department, covering only Turnpike/Parkway rest stops and facilities on state property itself Agency page

  • 02

    What the public sees

    A placard rating in three tiers: Satisfactory, Conditionally Satisfactory, or Unsatisfactory, backed by a narrative inspection report cross-referenced to Chapter 24 sections. Some municipalities color-code the placards (white/yellow/red). Source

  • 03

    Posting the result

    Required to be posted. N.J.A.C. 8:24-8.12 requires the operator of every retail food establishment to post the evaluation placard of the most recent evaluation in a conspicuous place near the public entrance; N.J.A.C. 8:24-8.13 requires the most recent inspection report be kept on premises for public review for at least two years. Rule

  • 04

    Food code in force

    2001 FDA Food Code. The FDA Food Code is a model, not a federal mandate — each state decides which edition to adopt and how far to amend it.

Worth knowing. There is no statewide public lookup portal. A bill to mandate a statewide four-tier placard system and a searchable online database (S2636) has been introduced but is not reflected in the current rule.
Official inspection lookups — New Jersey
Where to searchCoverage
Camden County online inspection reportsCounty
Gloucester County inspection report portalsCounty
Bulk data

No official bulk or API dataset found. Results are available one establishment at a time, or by public records request.

05

If you run the restaurant

The record is public either way. The useful move is to read it before a customer does.

Step one

Pull your own record

Search yourself in the lookup above and read every line of the last three reports. Repeat violations are what escalate.

Step two

Work the ten risk factors

Most citations trace back to the same ten practices the FDA measures nationally. Run the ten-minute self-check.

Step three

Fix, document, re-inspect

Dated photos and a written correction log are what a re-inspection rewards. What to do after a bad inspection.

Improved a bad record in New Jersey?

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