Fast Food Chains Sat Below Their Local Inspection Rate in 115 of 141 Readings.

FastFoodFact reads the public health-inspection records of ten U.S. places and sets each fast food chain against the rate for all restaurants in the same place. That gives 141 readings, one for each chain with enough inspections in each place. In 115 of them the chain’s whole range sat below the local rate. In 24 the range overlapped it. In 2 it sat above.

The ten places are Florida, New York City, New York State outside the city and two counties, Chicago, Austin, Seattle and King County, Las Vegas and Clark County, Louisville, Raleigh and Wake County, and Sacramento County. Each keeps its own kind of record, so the counts below are counts of readings, never an average of rates.

What a reading is

A reading is one chain in one place. We count its routine inspections and how many of them ended in that place’s own “problem” outcome: at least one high-priority violation in Florida, a Fail in Chicago, a score under 90 in Austin, a C grade in Louisville, and a different definition in each of the others. We then draw a 95% range around the chain’s share and compare it with the share for all restaurants in the same file. “Below” means the whole range is under that local share. “Overlaps” means the two cannot be told apart. A chain needs at least 100 routine inspections in a place to get a reading there.

Because the outcome differs by place, a reading says how a chain stands against its own place and nothing else. A chain’s 24% in one place and another’s 24% in a different place are not the same thing, and we never compare them.

Chain by chain

Fifteen chains have readings in four or more places. Of those, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Chipotle, Wendy’s, Dunkin’, Panda Express and Chick-fil-A were below the local rate in every place where they have a reading.

Number of places where the chain’s 95% range sat below, overlapped or sat above the local all-restaurant rate. Listed by number of places, then A to Z. The order is not a ranking: neighbouring rows are not separated.

Where the pattern does not hold

The pattern is strongest in Florida, where all 30 charted chains were below the statewide rate, and weakest in Louisville, where 3 of 13 were below, 9 overlapped and 1 was above. In Chicago 9 of 14 were below and 5 overlapped.

Subway is the one large chain that split across all three positions: below in 6 places, overlapping in 3 and above in 1. In Seattle and King County 286 of its 616 routine inspections (46.4%) ended in an Unsatisfactory result, against 35.6% for all food service establishments there. In Louisville, 16 of White Castle’s 144 routine inspections (11.1%) ended in a C grade, against 5.0% for all food service establishments. Those are the two readings above the local rate.

What this data does not tell you

• Why a chain sits where it does. The inspection files record what inspectors found, not why. Chains differ in what they cook and handle, so the bands do not measure management quality alone.
• What any one restaurant is like. A reading describes a chain’s franchise and company locations in one place over the period. It says nothing about a single location or about the brand.
• How the places rank. Each place defines its problem outcome differently, so a place with fewer problems on this tally is not a place with cleaner kitchens. We do not compare places.
• The rest of the country. Ten places is what FastFoodFact covers. Other places may look different.
• Chains with too few inspections. A chain with under 100 routine inspections in a place gets no reading there, so small footprints are missing from the count.

How we ran the numbers

Source: the inspection records published by each place’s health agency, committed to FastFoodFact as counts and pulled on 2 October 2026. Windows differ by place: New York City, New York State and Seattle run from January 2023, Florida from July 2023, Las Vegas from September 2023, Austin from October 2023, Sacramento from October 2023, Chicago from January 2019, Louisville from September 2021 and Raleigh from October 2021, each through the newest record in the file (late September or early October 2026; Austin’s newest was 10 September 2026). Only routine inspections are counted, with re-inspections and complaint visits left out, and files that list violation rows, such as New York City’s, grouped into inspections first. The baseline for each place is every restaurant or food establishment in the same file. Ranges are 95% Wilson intervals. We computed the tally twice, once through FastFoodFact’s own code and once from the raw count files with a separate script, and both gave 115, 24 and 2 across 141 readings, 33 chains and 10 places.

Chicago data: this site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. The data provided at this site is subject to change at any time. It is understood that the data provided at this site is being used at one’s own risk.

New York State data: the analyses, interpretations and conclusions drawn from New York State data here were reached by FastFoodFact and not by the New York State Department of Health. The department states that this data was not collected for use as a restaurant grading system and does not support or endorse such a use; the figures here describe groups of inspections and are not a grade of any restaurant.

Informational only. Not health or legal advice.