Use Durham County’s public inspection table to find the establishment, then check establishment type, address, State ID and inspection date before reading its score or grade. The table covers more than restaurants and warns that a letter grade does not apply to every establishment type. A number beside N/A therefore should not be read as a restaurant grade.
The Durham County Environmental Health page links this grade search and describes the local programs it inspects. This guide was checked October 16, 2026; the state grading rule link was updated October 24, 2026. It explains how to locate the right county record and keep different facility classes from being compared as if they shared one grading scale.
Filter for the establishment you actually visited
In the county-linked table, use a distinctive part of the name or an address. The visible filters also include State ID#, county, establishment type, inspection date, city, ZIP and grade. Confirm the full address in the result row; save the State ID and date when several records belong to the same name or location. Then open the row’s inspection report or violation details when available. The list summary does not replace those details.
Durham’s General Inspections section covers restaurants, caterers, commissaries, food stands, school lunchrooms, mobile food vendors and other food-service operations. It also regulates child-care, residential-care and other nonrestaurant facilities. If you want a restaurant’s inspection, make sure the type column actually says restaurant or otherwise identifies the food-service operation you meant. Do not compare a restaurant to a child-care row simply because both show a number under “Final Score.”
The date filters can narrow a comparison to one day: enter the same date in the From and To boxes, then select Search. Keep that filter in your notes when describing the results. Do not assume that changing the establishment type leaves you with comparable scores; the program and the specific dated form still control their meaning.
Read type and grade together
Rows with an inspection date of October 14, 2026, viewed on October 16, show the difference. Some rows labeled 1 - Restaurant displayed numeric scores with an A grade. Rows labeled 6 - Edu. Food Service also displayed A grades, while child-care and residential-care rows had numbers in the score column and N/A in the grade column. These are examples of displayed fields, not a ranking of those facilities or a statement about their condition today.
| If the row shows | Read it this way |
|---|---|
| Restaurant type, score and letter grade | Keep the grade attached to that dated restaurant inspection; open its report for observations. |
| Another food-service type | Confirm the program before applying any restaurant-specific interpretation. |
N/A under Grade | The table does not supply a letter grade for that row. The adjacent number is not a restaurant letter-grade equivalent. |
The county portal explicitly notes that “Grade” does not apply to all establishment types. It is therefore unsafe to treat N/A as a failing grade, or a 0 displayed for a nongraded facility as a restaurant score of zero. Even an A on a restaurant row is a dated result: read its item details and any later inspection before claiming an issue was corrected.
What the score and letter mean in North Carolina
North Carolina’s grading rule is 15A NCAC 18A .2662, part of the state food establishment rules published by the NC Division of Public Health. A score of at least 90 earns an A, 80 to under 90 a B, and 70 to under 80 a C. Below 70, the rule refers to permit action under state law rather than a letter. Points for violations are subtracted from 100, and Forsyth County’s explanation of the same statewide system notes a two-point education credit, which is why an A score can exceed 100.
A grade below A doesn’t have to wait for the next routine visit. Under the state system, the operator can correct the violations and ask for a reinspection to raise the grade. So a B on one date and an A a few days later may be a requested grade reinspection rather than a new routine cycle. Read both rows’ dates and inspection types before treating the second as proof that every earlier item was fixed.
Durham’s General Inspections section also posts lists of permitted food trucks and permitted caterers. Those answer a different question from the grade table: whether an operator holds a county permit at all. For a report or a field you can’t interpret, contact Environmental Health at 414 East Main Street, 919-560-7800, or food@dconc.gov. For the neighboring county’s system, see our Wake County inspection search guide.
When the table does not answer your question
A name search may miss the intended location, and a list row alone cannot show the outcome of an unviewed follow-up or whether a facility is currently operating. Try the address and establishment type, then use the county’s Environmental Health contact route with the State ID and inspection date if you need a particular report or explanation of a field. For a correction or closure question, ask for the later reinspection, suspension or reinstatement record specifically; the original grade does not establish the outcome of a later action.
For broader North Carolina datasets, the state dashboard guide explains why an inspection event and an aggregate performance view answer different questions. The report-reading guide can help you interpret the dated observations once you have opened the county report.
Related guides
Wake County uses the same state grading scale; Wake County restaurant inspection scores by town shows how scores spread across Raleigh, Cary and nearby towns.
North Carolina uses the same A, B and C bands statewide. In Cumberland County, 98.2% of 1,732 restaurant inspections from October 2025 to September 2026 earned an A; the breakdown is in Cumberland County restaurant sanitation grades.