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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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)

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@tymulholland.com

@tymulholland

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