Open the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department Food Protection page and find the inspection-score search. The local program covers regulated food establishments in Fayette County, including restaurants, retail food markets, bars, and institutional cafeterias. Start typing the establishment name, choose the matching suggestion, and select Search. The result table shows the establishment, address, and an Inspections control. Match the address before opening the history, especially when a name has more than one location.
Select View inspections to expand the dated events for that premises. The history displays the date, inspection type, score, and results. Read the listed results for the item number, item name, and whether the item belongs to the foodborne-illness risk-factor group or the good-retail-practice group. Keep those details with the date and type; a score alone cannot show what the inspector found.
Read the history by event, not by score alone
The expanded history uses words such as Regular and Follow Up. The department’s explanation also assigns codes to the main types: 1 for regular, 2 for follow-up, and 3 for a complaint inspection prompted by a constituent complaint. A follow-up is a separate dated event. It does not replace the inspection or finding that it addresses.
More than one event can appear on the same date, so date alone is not enough. Record the type, score, and findings together. The department says food-service establishments receive inspections at least every six months and may be inspected more often when needed, but the public page does not publish a guaranteed online-history start date. Treat the visible list as the history currently returned for that premises, not as proof that no earlier record exists.
The public results do not show a stable facility ID. Use the physical address as the primary match and retain any identifier supplied in a later records response. If you need a repeatable way to compare dated events, the site’s restaurant reinspection and follow-up guide explains how to keep the original inspection and later verification separate.
An 85 does not always mean a green placard
Lexington-Fayette’s current Food Service Regulation 19 calculates the rating from 100 minus the weighted points for violations. The placard rule then combines that number with the treatment of Priority items:
| Inspection outcome | Placard rule for an eligible establishment |
|---|---|
| Score of 85 or higher, with no Priority item in violation | Green |
| Score of 85 or higher, with every Priority item corrected immediately | Green |
| Score of 84 or lower | Red |
| A Priority item cannot be corrected immediately | Red |
This is why a numeric score and a color should be recorded together. A high score does not resolve an uncorrected Priority item, while an immediately corrected Priority item does not automatically force a red placard under the full regulation.
The required placard program applies to eligible food-service establishments that prepare food on the premises. The regulation excludes statewide mobile food units, pushcarts, restricted-concession food services, temporary food services, and similar operations from that placard requirement. An absent red or green placard therefore is not, by itself, evidence that an operation was never inspected.
The online results may summarize findings under risk-factor and good-retail-practice groupings. Read the item names behind those counts. A group count is not a second score, and a green placard is not a guarantee of present conditions after the inspection date.
Follow-up and ERE answer different questions
A Follow Up label identifies a separately typed follow-up event, even when it shares a date with another event. Enhanced Regulatory Enforcement, or ERE, is a broader inspection-frequency status under Section 45 of Regulation 19. An establishment enters ERE if it scores below 85 on a regular inspection, fails an assigned follow-up, or closes because of an imminent public-health issue.
ERE adds one inspection within a 12-month period. The establishment exits only after passing two consecutive regular inspections; a follow-up is not one of those two regular passes. That distinction matters when the history includes several event types close together. Use the type label before deciding whether an event verifies a correction, contributes to ERE exit, or does something else.
Correction dates are not closure or reopening dates
Section 46 sets different correction rules. Violations of one- or two-point weighted items at a facility scoring 85 or higher must be corrected as soon as possible and no later than the next routine inspection. At a score from 70 through 84, those items must be corrected as soon as possible and within the department’s specified period, no longer than 30 days. Priority items marked with an asterisk have a department-set deadline of no more than 10 days. These are outer rules for correction, not three automatic grace periods. Use the due date or instruction on the actual inspection record when one is supplied.
The enforcement sequence changes below 70. A score below 70 brings a Notice of Intent to Suspend Permit; the regulation provides for suspension within five days after receipt unless the permit holder files a written hearing request. A score below 60 also requires immediate closure and the notice process. Separately, Section 46 permits immediate suspension on notice when the department has substantial reason to believe an imminent public-health hazard exists. A red placard, a follow-up, and a closure are therefore not interchangeable labels.
For a suspended permit, the holder may request a reinspection for reinstatement in writing and submit a signed statement that the conditions causing suspension have been corrected. The department then must reinspect within 10 days of receiving that request. Reinstatement depends on the reinspection finding compliance; the 10-day clock is not a promise that the permit will be restored. Separately, when the regulation requires an establishment to cease operations, it cannot resume until a reinspection determines that the conditions causing the cessation no longer exist.
For a closure question, collect the inspection, notice or order, reinspection, and reinstatement or return-to-operation evidence. The site’s restaurant closure and permit-suspension guide shows why each belongs on its own date.
Request older records with a narrow description
When the online history does not cover the period or document you need, use the Open Records Request link on the department’s About Us page. The linked form asks for contact information, a description of the records, the intended use, and the requester’s Kentucky-resident basis.
Identify the establishment name, physical address, and a date range. Ask for the inspection reports, follow-up or complaint inspections, notices of intent to suspend, closure or cease-operation orders, reinspection records, and permit-reinstatement record that fall within that range. A narrow request reduces the chance of mixing locations and makes any gap easier to describe.
Submitting the form does not guarantee that a requested record exists, is disclosable, or will arrive on a fixed schedule. If the form’s Kentucky-resident-basis requirement does not fit your circumstances, ask the department through its current About Us contact route which access method applies. Until a later dated inspection or agency action is available, describe the last verified event by its date rather than calling the establishment currently safe, closed, or reopened.
For Boone, Campbell, Grant and Kenton counties, Northern Kentucky Health publishes scores through its own county links; the Northern Kentucky inspection scores guide explains them and its follow-up rules.
Sources checked September 27, 2026. Public interfaces, forms, and regulations can change; confirm the current Lexington-Fayette County Health Department page before relying on a procedure or deadline.