The Restaurant Scene and Efficacy of Food Inspections in Boston

Ty Mulholland

Executive Summary

• Question: How do restaurant inspections affect the climate, stability and makeup of the restaurant scene in Boston?

• Utilized several datasets including: 
  • Boston Health Department food inspections
  • Yelp restaurant data
  • Boston Census Tracts
  • Food inspections data from sister cities (Austin, San Francisco, Seattle)

*Or as long as the statue of limitations, whichever is shorter

Key Findings

• There is ultimately no correlation between how many failed inspections a Boston restaurant has and it’s ratings by customers. 
  
  
• There were proportionate failed inspections to passed inspections for each neighborhood in Boston.
  
  
• Higher Rated Restaurants tend to have fewer failed inspections.
  
  
• The Lyons Group owns the most restaurants in Boston at 28 by 2020.

Key Findings

• The top restaurants for food inspection failures according to the Food Inspection dataset represent chain restaurants: McDonald’s (1221), Subway (1198), Dunkin Donuts (1104), Burger King (495).
   
• The top Level 1 offenders are: McDonald’s (1540), Subway (1473), The Real Deal (1122).
   
• Restaurant inspections dropped dramatically in 2020
   
• Boston has the second most overall inspections per year compared to Austin, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Restaurant Scene and Inspections

• The data suggests there is roughly 1800 food establishments in Boston with the most being in Dorchester
   
• Boston Health Department issued 298,023 violations between 2010 and 2020
   
• Boston had the second most inspections with San Francisco being first

Restaurant Scene and Inspections

Examined inspection result versus the rating (Yelp 1-5 star) to see if there was any correlation

• Data showed little to no correlation that inspection result affects the rating of a restaurant
   

Data also indicated that inspectors were fairly likely to give an equal amount of passed inspections as failed inspections. 

Other Findings

• Restaurants with higher pricing tended to have lower failed inspections. (~11% of the market were priced high/$$$ or expensive/$$$$
   
• Based on neighborhood, it takes an average of  2 years for a restaurant to shift the trajectory of inspections

Other Findings

There was a direct correlation between the number of reviews and the rating
 

• 2020 marked a massive decline in inspections likely due to COVID
   
• When calculating a desirability score to more properly determine whether a restaurant deserved a high rating, the data suggested that only 20 restaurants meet a 'desirable'
  (failure rate < 70% + rating > 3.4 + review count > =50)

Conclusion

• Overall there is not enough evidence to suggest that inspection results have impact on a restaurants rating
   
• There is evidence to show that more expensive restaurants receive better inspection results
   
• When translating a more holistic rating, very few restaurants actually meet the criteria

Ty Mulholland

ty@tymulholland.com

@tymulholland

THANK YOU!