The NYC Health Department closed restaurants 583 times between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026, at 518 different restaurants, about 2.5% of the 20,932 restaurants it inspected that year. Most reopened within a week: the median gap between a closure and the recorded reopening was 6 days. Signs of pests were behind most closures, with mice cited at 44% of them.
These figures are our own count from NYC Open Data restaurant inspection results (pulled October 23, 2026), which records each inspection’s action, including “Establishment Closed by DOHMH” and “Establishment re-opened by DOHMH.” To look up one restaurant’s grade and history, start with our NYC restaurant grades guide.
When the NYC Health Department closes a restaurant
The department’s inspection cycle overview says it may order a restaurant to close to correct a public health hazard that can’t be fixed on the spot, or when the restaurant is operating without a valid permit. Its How We Score and Grade guide adds that a restaurant scoring 28 or more points keeps getting inspected about monthly until it scores below 28 or the department closes it for serious and persistent violations. Reopening requires a separate reopening inspection. After a reopening inspection the record can show Grade Pending; 338 restaurants were in that position in October 2026.
In practice, closures and C-range scores travel together. The median closure inspection carried 62 violation points, and 92% scored 28 or more. A closure inspection cited 7.4 different violation codes on average.
Violations cited at NYC closure inspections
Share of the 583 closure inspections that cited each violation code:
| Code | What the inspector found | Share of closures |
|---|---|---|
| 08A | Conditions that let rodents or insects live or get in | 76% |
| 06C | Food or supplies not protected from contamination | 56% |
| 10F | Non-food surfaces or equipment dirty, damaged or unsealed | 50% |
| 04L | Mice or evidence of mice | 44% |
| 02G | Cold food held above 41°F | 40% |
| 10B | Plumbing, drainage or backflow device problems | 36% |
| 02B | Hot food held below 140°F | 31% |
| 06D | Food contact surfaces not washed and sanitized | 31% |
| 05D | Hand-washing sink missing near a toilet or prep area | 29% |
| 04M | Live roaches | 29% |
| 04N | Filth flies or other nuisance flies | 28% |
| 28-06 | No pest control contract or extermination records | 24% |
Rats (code 04K) appeared at 77 closures, 13%. Food held at the wrong temperature, cold or hot, showed up at 54%. Our most common health code violations analysis compares these codes with all inspections, not only closures.
NYC restaurant closures by borough
Restaurants closed at least once during the year, per 1,000 restaurants the department inspected in that borough:
- Brooklyn: 178 closed of 5,432 inspected, 32.8 per 1,000.
- Queens: 145 of 4,822, 30.1 per 1,000.
- Bronx: 40 of 1,870, 21.4 per 1,000.
- Manhattan: 144 of 8,043, 17.9 per 1,000.
- Staten Island: 11 of 752, 14.6 per 1,000.
Brooklyn and Queens closed restaurants at nearly twice Manhattan’s rate. How current letter grades split by borough is in our NYC grades by borough and cuisine analysis.
How long NYC restaurants stay closed
Counting days from each closure inspection to the next “re-opened” action for the same restaurant:
- 52.7% reopened within 7 days.
- 71.9% within 14 days.
- 82.3% within 30 days.
- 69 closures, 11.8%, had no reopening in the data as of October 21, 2026.
Some restaurants fail the first try: the data shows 104 “re-closed” actions during the year, where the department closed a restaurant again at a later inspection. 57 restaurants were closed on two or more separate occasions in the twelve months.
Most closures came at routine cycle inspections (328, or 56%). Another 238 came at inspections the city labels “Pre-permit (Operational).”
How to check whether a NYC restaurant was closed
- Search the restaurant on the city’s ABCEats lookup, following our NYC grades guide.
- Open the inspection list and look for an action that says the establishment was closed, re-closed or re-opened.
- Read the violations cited on the closure date; pest and temperature codes explain most closures.
- Check the reopening date and the inspections after it.
- Read the score of the latest graded inspection with the tool below.
Restaurant Inspection Check tool · rules checked October 21–23, 2026
Inspection score reader
Pick the program that inspected the restaurant, then enter what the report or door sign shows. The reader explains it on that agency's own scale and tells you what usually happens next.
What this count leaves out
The city’s file includes only restaurants in active status, so a restaurant that closed after an inspection and never came back drops out of the data, and the true number of closures is higher than the count above. Closures late in September had less time to show a reopening before the data pull. The count covers Health Department closures only; other agencies’ orders and voluntary closures don’t appear. For closure records in other cities, see our restaurant closure and permit suspension guide.
NYC Health Department grading pages and NYC Open Data checked October 24, 2026.