Cincinnati Restaurant Analysis

Background

Cincinnati is a great place to live with many interesting places to eat and hang out with your friends and family. My interest in this data stems from my obsession with cuisine, grilling, and food in general. After getting a glimpse of this in class, I simply could not stop thinking about the cleanliness of some of my favorite spots.

Question 1

What are the most non-compliant food-service businesses in Cincinnati (2012-2025)?

There seems to be a lot of action in the downtown and Oakley areas… this raises further questions about these areas specifically.

Question 2

What were the top 5 worst offenders for each year of the data (2012-2025)?

It appears as though Great American Ball Park got its act cleaned up… but still quite a few appearances by Oakley and Downtown. There was a tie in 2014 between Oakley Pub & Grill and China Gourmet in Hyde Park.

Either the game has changed or the data for the last two years is incomplete - noting a substantial drop in overall findings from 2023-present.

Question 3

Who are the worst all-time offenders in each neighborhood?

I would avoid eating Asian foods in the Hyde Park area!

Question 4

Are the all-time worst-offending businesses taking the inspection report information and acting on it?

My daughter goes to the Losantiville Country Club with some of her friends to swim; they seem to be trending in the wrong direciton.

Question 5

What violations are observed most frequently? What is the distribution of these violations by neighborhood?

It seems to be a common theme that cleanliness is not up to par, and that food is often stored improperly. Either of these two findings are critical and can result in serious bodily harm to unsuspecting customers!

Bonus Content

I love Steak-n-Shake and frequently get carry-out from the location on Ridge Ave…

These are the violations for that location:

Health Code Violations are fairly common, but they should not be overlooked when considering the overall cleanliness of an establishment. While there are relatively low-impact items on this list, I still find it disturbing that there is food touching nonfood-contact surfaces. I actually witnessed this exact thing the last time I was in there and pointed it out to my son - the person prepping the burgers was sitting them on the counter instead of leaving them on the cooking stick thing the grill cook puts them on. Wowza!

Regarding Findings Per Inspection

What is the distribution of findings per inspection?

Oakley is simply the wrong shape and should most likely be avoided if at all possible!

Chicago Health Code Analysis

I travel to Chicago for work occasionally and wanted to check and see if any of my favorite spots appeared on the most egregious violators’ list.

Question 1

Who are the most egregious health code violators in the city of Chicago?

Interestingly, Chicago’s data set has a Risk Level category - this gives you a quick glimpse into the risks created by the observed deficiency.

Question 2

Are these businesses working to improve their situations?

We can observe a 50/50 split on positive and negative trends.

Conclusion

I believe the health inspection process works, but as we can see by the trend lines for both Cincinnati and Chicago, many of the businesses found to be in violation of health codes simply cannot remedy their issues. Many of them seem to develop more problems over time, and this can be attributed to poor management, and a lack of training for employees. Food service is a huge industry, and we should hold businesses in our communities to a higher standard!