Inspection Report

The 27-item inspection report is reflective from The Texas Food Establishment Rules, or “TFER” which was adopted by the Texas Board of Health in September 1998. All critical items are underlined to assist the user in verifying those portions of the rules that are critical and non-critical. Each item is assigned a value; these are totaled and subtracted from 100 to determine the score. There are 14 critical items that are worth 4 or 5 points each; the remaining 13 items are worth 3 points each. An item is only counted once regardless of the quantity of like observations, i.e. a pest problem is counted as 3 points regardless of the quantity or different types of pests.

Critical items are more likely to contribute to food contamination, illness, injury, and environmental contamination. Examples of critical items considered to be imminent health hazards are: poor sanitation conditions, no hot water available, sewage back-up into the establishment, pest infestation, and un-functional refrigeration equipment. These imminent critical conditions require the establishment to close for business until corrections are made. Critical items are to be corrected at the time of the inspection or prior to re-opening. Less critical items should be corrected within 10 days or by the next routine inspection. In addition, according to local ordinance the food permit may be suspended if the total cumulative demerit value of an establishment exceeds 30 demerits. All non-critical, un-scored items are to be corrected before the next inspection.

The inspections are observations that occurred at a particular point in time. The scores do not always indicate the overall condition of an establishment, i.e. An establishment could have an inspection of ‘94’, with only one critical item noted. At the same time, this single critical item could cause the establishment to be closed until corrections are resolved. It is important to review inspection comments and understand each establishment’s history for a single inspection to be a valid tool for compliance.