The Kanawha-Charleston Health Department oversees retail-food sites including restaurants, grocery stores, schools, hospitals, day cares, and temporary stands. It links to its public inspection portal. For a restaurant, open its dated Routine report and any later Follow-Up under the same permit. Follow-up Required: No does not erase displayed OUT observations or the earlier report.
Find the food report in a mixed inspection list
The unfiltered list includes food, body-piercing, and tattoo reports. Check that the entry belongs to the food program before using it to evaluate a restaurant. A report labeled Food Report 2013 uses a form name; 2013 is not the inspection year. Use the inspection date shown on each event.
The visible search controls include a date range and Inspection Purpose choices such as Routine, Follow-Up, Opening, Complaint, Consultation, and Other. The observed default date range began January 1 of the current calendar year and ended on the day checked. That default is a search setting, not evidence that earlier inspections do not exist. Adjust the dates for the period you need, then confirm the establishment and location before following its facility link. The facility page groups dated inspection events under one permit; open the individual report rather than relying on a list row alone.
If a name resembles more than one establishment, compare the location and permit history shown by the portal. A move, a similarly named restaurant, or another KCHD program could lead to the wrong record. If the date range returns nothing, change the dates and ask the department about missing history; a blank result does not mean there were no inspections or violations.
Read the Routine and Follow-Up as separate events
An opened Routine food report showed Follow-up Required: Yes, item numbers, inspection-code references, OUT markings, and corrective-action text. Those fields answer different questions. The code and item identify what the inspector checked; OUT marks the observation on that dated report; the narrative explains the recorded correction or direction. Read the narrative before saying whether an issue was corrected during the visit or left for later work. A plan or promised correction is not itself proof of completion.
A later Follow-Up showed Follow-up Required: No while OUT observations remained visible. Read the checkbox with the item text: No does not erase listed OUT observations. Compare the original and later item text and dates. Do not subtract OUT marks across visits to invent a score or assume that every earlier issue was resolved.
| What the report shows | What to check next |
|---|---|
| Food Report 2013 | Read the actual inspection date and purpose; the form label is not the visit year. |
| Routine: Follow-up Required Yes | Open its OUT items and corrective actions, then look for the later event under the same permit. |
| Follow-Up: Follow-up Required No | Read any OUT items still displayed and the event narrative before describing what changed. |
Neither opened HTML report displayed a numeric score or letter grade. Do not create one from OUT marks. KCHD’s food-program page describes immediate plans for critical violations and prompt correction of non-critical ones. Those terms do not supply a conversion formula for the portal’s OUT observations. The site’s violation-reading guide helps separate the cited item, correction, and later check by date.
Check the rule date and ask for the missing action
KCHD’s food page still refers to a 2008 rule. For current rule context, the West Virginia Secretary of State’s 64 CSR 17 listing marks the Food Establishments rule effective April 1, 2023 as active. The state food-safety program says the state incorporates the 2013 FDA Model Food Code with West Virginia modifications and that local health departments perform retail-food inspections. The report’s form name and the Food Code edition are different from the date of a particular inspection.
If the question is whether an establishment was ordered to stop operating or later allowed to resume, seek the dated action and later authorization rather than reading that status from Follow-up Required: No. KCHD’s Environmental Health office lists a phone and email contact. Give the establishment’s name and location, the relevant report dates, and the specific missing inspection or action record. The site’s closure and permit-suspension guide explains the document sequence to ask about. No closure or reopening order was reviewed for this guide.
Official rule and agency pages and the live report route were checked September 27, 2026. A dated inspection records what was documented then; it is not a guarantee of present food safety. Recheck the latest report and any later agency action for the exact establishment.