To find a Fort Bend County food inspection record, first confirm that Fort Bend County Environmental Health regulates the restaurant’s physical address. Then search the county’s official My Health Department portal, open the establishment, and compare the inspection purpose, date, score, violations, and any later reinspection. A score is a dated inspection result. It does not prove current operating status or conditions.
Confirm the regulator before searching the restaurant name
Fort Bend County’s Environmental Health service-area page says the county’s jurisdiction covers unincorporated areas. It also lists food-service agreements with Kendleton, Needville, Weston Lakes, Simonton, Pleak, Meadows Place, and Beasley.
That makes the street address more useful than the postal city alone. A mailing address that says Houston, Katy, Richmond, Sugar Land, or another nearby city does not by itself identify the food regulator. The county tells readers who are unsure about city limits to check the property through the Fort Bend Central Appraisal District.
Use the county portal when the address is in an unincorporated part of Fort Bend County or one of the listed food-service agreement cities. For another incorporated city, find that city’s food authority before assuming a blank county result means there is no inspection.
The site’s Houston inspection guide is a separate route for establishments regulated by the City of Houston.
Keep food records separate from the other portal results
The county portal searches by establishment name and also lets users browse by date range and inspection purpose. Its results are not limited to restaurants: food and pool inspections can appear in the same list. Before opening a score, require these matches:
- The establishment name and complete street address match the location you mean.
- The result is labeled Food Safety Inspection, rather than a pool or another program form.
- The purpose and date are the visit you intend to review. Current records can show purposes such as Routine, Permit, Reinspection, or Complaint.
Open the establishment page to see its inspection list instead of relying only on the most recent card. Then open the individual report. The live report view provides the inspection purpose, date, score, observations and corrective actions, additional comments, and a link to the original inspection PDF. This sequence helps separate an initial or permit visit from a later routine or reinspection record.
Read the score as 100 minus weighted demerits
Fort Bend County’s 2023 Food Establishment Regulations state that the report assigns weighted point and demerit values to violations. The displayed rating score is 100 minus the total weighted demerits.
The useful question is therefore not simply whether the number looks high or low. Open the report and record:
- the inspection purpose and date;
- the score shown for that visit;
- each cited item and the inspector’s observation;
- the stated corrective action or correction period; and
- any later reinspection or permit action.
The regulations do not turn the portal score by itself into proof that a business is open, closed, safe today, or free of later findings. For a fuller reading method, use the site’s inspection report guide.
A worked example: a higher reinspection score still had remaining violations
Search Food Mart, then match 17130 Beechnut St, Houston, TX 77083-6614 before opening the establishment history. Other Food Mart names appear at different addresses. The three original reports below identify this location as Est. # HO-94. The portal profile key is a separate identifier; neither the postal city nor the business name alone establishes the regulator.
The records were checked online on October 8, 2026. Read them in date order, while keeping the purpose of each visit visible:
| Dated report | Purpose and official score | What the record establishes |
|---|---|---|
| May 27, 2026 | Routine – 70 | The comments require a reinspection, especially for a nonfunctioning walk-in cooler, planned on or after June 3. This is the plan; the later report is needed to establish that a visit occurred. |
| June 3, 2026 | Reinspection – 84 | The inspector says many earlier violations were corrected but several remained. The comments warn of possible additional reinspections or closure if the remaining conditions were not corrected before the permit inspection. That is conditional language, not a statement that a closure occurred. |
| October 6, 2026 | Permit – 83 | The original form shows Permit Approved: Pass, and the comments approve permit renewal. The same report still lists violations. A dated approval does not establish that every earlier item was corrected or describe conditions today. |
Open the original PDF when the HTML only states the rule. In the June 3 original PDF, page 2 lists item 16 with Status: OUT and Type: Repeat, then directs cleaning inside the ice machine to remove black residue. The HTML version displays the general cleaning-frequency rule but omits those item-level status/type labels and that specific corrective-action detail. The PDF legend defines OUT as not in compliance. The higher score of 84 therefore cannot be read as an all-items-corrected result.
The first page of each of these three PDFs marks Closure Notice: NO. Read that as the field on those dated reports, not proof that no separate action exists or that the business is open now. The October permit visit is also a different purpose from the June reinspection. If the question is actual closure or reopening, obtain the relevant dated notice or authorization rather than turning this score sequence into a current status.
Reinspection and permit action are different records
The county’s inspection explanation says unresolved critical violations require follow-up or reinspection. The regulations require the inspection report to set a reasonable correction period and allow additional fees for reinspections that verify correction. The current fee page says a reinspection is usually, but not always, held within ten days.
A reinspection answers whether cited conditions were corrected when the inspector returned. It does not automatically prove a closure. Under Section 10 of the regulations, denial, suspension, or revocation is documented through a Notice of Adverse Action. The inspection report may itself serve as that notice; check whether it actually documents the action. Immediate action may be taken when the operation presents a substantial or immediate public-health, life, or safety hazard. Look for the later report or notice rather than translating a score into a closure decision.
If the portal shows only the original report, keep the outcome unresolved. The reinspection follow-up guide explains how to connect a later visit without assuming that a planned recheck occurred.
Do not combine the ownership clock with the risk-history clock
Fort Bend uses two different timelines that answer different questions.
| Timeline | What it governs | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| 30-day conditional permit | A change-of-ownership transition. The regulations allow renewal no more than 11 times. | It does not erase or decide inspection-history risk. |
| Two-year continued-noncompliance history | One basis for a Very High Risk classification, which carries at least six routine inspections per year. | It is not the term of the conditional permit or an automatic closure period. |
The county’s Food Establishments page now links a September 10, 2026 fee order and directs ownership-change applicants to the 30-day permit process. That four-page fee document is separate from the full regulations: the County Attorney’s regulations index still lists the food-establishment rules effective May 23, 2023. Read the permit document for the new owner separately from the facility’s dated inspection history.
Portal history and agency retention are not the same thing
In the example above, the establishment history also displayed an August 4, 2025 Permit report, even though the portal’s initial browse window ran from January 1 to October 8, 2026. That older report was not part of the three-report comparison. Open the profile and check its list before treating the initial date window as the extent of the history.
The Texas State Library and Archives Commission’s Local Schedule HR assigns sanitary evaluation reports for restaurants and similar facilities a three-year minimum retention period. It also explains that a local government may keep records longer and may have holds for litigation, audits, public-information requests, or other pending action.
That minimum does not promise that every retained report appears in the public portal. If an older report, original PDF, correction record, or adverse-action notice is missing, contact Fort Bend County Environmental Health with the establishment name, exact address, document type, and date range. Ask for the specific inspection report or notice rather than asking whether the restaurant is “good” or “closed.”
Official program sources and the linked example checked October 8, 2026.