This Restaurant Green Flag Could Indicate A Clean Kitchen

In this day and age, it can seem like food safety-related news is always on our radar. From produce recalls that disrupt supply chains to deli meat recalls surrounding popular brands like Boar's Head, it can seem like shopping at the grocery store always carries a risk. But the bad news is that restaurants may not be better. Although restaurants need to adhere to health codes and regulations, it's easy for policies to fall to the wayside during a lunch or dinner rush.

Luckily, there are some ways that diners can tell whether or not the kitchen they're ordering food from is practicing proper food safety – and it's not as obvious as you might expect. Brian Labus, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the UNLV School of Public Health, says that a good front-of-house, which is more visible to customers than the back, is a good way to tell the state of the kitchen. "If the dining room is bright, clean, and well-organized, that cleanliness is likely going to carry on into the kitchen," he says. He also shares that things like well-stocked and clean bathrooms are a good sign and give the impression that, as he says, "the back of the house is probably treated the same way." 

Unfortunately, as Brian Labus explains, determining whether the restaurant you're visiting is clean and hygienic isn't easy. "It would be nice if there were green flags on the menu or questions you could ask a server that could tell you that the kitchen was being operated safely, but there really aren't," he says. And even if you could walk back into the kitchen and peek around, you may not even know what to look for.

That said, he does offer some tips on how to decide whether a restaurant is as clean as it looks, including one key clue: checking out the inspection information. These inspection grades look at everything from sterilization and food safety to cooking temperatures and sourcing, then give restaurants a score based on that information.  "Restaurants post their grades for diners to see and health departments often post the inspection reports online," he says. "Seeing that the restaurant has a long history of A grades tells you what you need to know about how they approach food safety." Doing this research ahead of time and brushing up on restaurant red flags will help you to decide whether an eatery is worth ordering from or not.