Use the Yolo County inspection portal to find the exact food facility, then open its facility page and read the dated inspections in order. If you are checking whether a restaurant reopened after a closure, look for Reinstatement of Permit Following Suspension. Yolo County defines that result as the record that the facility may reopen after the closure-causing violations were corrected and the facility was reinspected.
The county’s inspection-search page describes coverage of Yolo County’s permitted fixed food facilities, including restaurants, bars, markets, grocery and convenience stores, and school cafeterias. The county’s search page says mobile food vehicles and food carts are outside this database, so an empty result for one of those operations should not be treated as a clean history.
Open the facility history before judging one inspection
The current portal begins with one establishment search box. It also lets you browse by date range and inspection purpose, including Routine and Follow-up. A short name or street fragment is often more useful than a long exact name. The county’s food-facility search tips advise trying partial terms and using the address without the business name when a name may have changed.
After you find a likely match:
- Compare the street address and city with the premises you intend to check.
- Open the establishment name. This leads to the facility record and its Most Recent Inspection and Inspections List.
- Open each relevant dated visit. The inspection page identifies the program and purpose, date, a Score & Grade field, Observations & Corrective Actions, and a link to the original inspection PDF. Some reports also include additional comments.
- Keep the facility page and the individual report separate. The facility URL uses a permit identifier; each visit has its own inspection identifier.
Yolo County says the online database contains most inspections conducted since January 1, 2007. “Most” is a limit, not a promise that every older report or enforcement document appears. A blank search can also reflect a name change, an excluded mobile operation, or a search term that is too specific.
The event label tells you what happened next
The county’s inspection-type definitions give each visit a different role:
| County label | What it establishes | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Routine Inspection | A periodic, unannounced inspection of a permitted food facility | That no later violation or action occurred |
| Follow-Up Inspection | A revisit after a routine inspection that found violations | Reopening after a suspension by itself |
| Complaint Inspection | An investigation prompted by a complaint or request | That the allegation was accurate |
| Permit Suspended or Revoked | Critical violations serious enough to close the facility were not immediately corrected | That the facility remained closed indefinitely |
| Reinstatement of Permit Following Suspension | Closure-causing violations were corrected and the facility was reinspected before reopening | That conditions have remained unchanged since that date |
This distinction matters when a history contains several visits close together. A follow-up may show that particular corrections were reviewed, but Yolo County gives reinstatement its own meaning after suspension. Do not substitute a later routine visit for the named reopening event without the intervening record.
Read the number through Yolo County’s placard rules
Do not turn the portal’s Score & Grade number into a percentage or an A–F grade. Yolo County describes its public result system through green, yellow and red placards. Its June 2024 placard explanation says:
- Green (PASS): no more than one major violation was observed, and it was mitigated or corrected during the inspection.
- Yellow (CONDITIONAL PASS): two or more major violations were observed and mitigated or corrected, with a follow-up to come.
- Red (CLOSED): a major violation created an imminent health hazard that could not be mitigated or corrected during the inspection.
The county’s separate violations guide uses critical and minor categories. It says critical violations may require immediate closure or immediate correction and usually require reinspection unless corrected during the visit. Minor violations still require correction, and recurring minor violations may support closure when the facility repeatedly fails to correct them.
Those labels should be read as the county publishes them. Do not merge “major,” “critical,” the portal number, and a placard color into a private score formula. Our guide to reading food inspection violations explains how to keep the finding, correction notation, and follow-up event separate.
Reconstruct closure and reopening as a dated sequence
Imagine a fictional restaurant with a May 4 routine report recording Permit Suspended or Revoked, a May 6 return inspection, and a May 6 reinstatement result. The May 4 record explains the conditions that caused closure. The return inspection documents what was checked afterward. The reinstatement result is the county’s explicit evidence that the permit could resume after the closure conditions were corrected and reinspected.
Now remove the reinstatement row from that example. A later inspection may be relevant, but the public sequence no longer contains the county’s named reopening result. Check the original PDFs and ask for the missing action rather than inferring reopening from a better-looking number. The same discipline applies to a complaint: its presence explains why an investigation began, not whether the complaint was substantiated.
If the portal does not show the dated record you need, use Yolo County Environmental Health’s file-review route. Identify the facility name and address, the relevant date range, and the specific inspection report, suspension notice, reinspection, or reinstatement record sought. The county determines what records are available and how they may be reviewed.
For more detail on why a closure record and reopening authorization answer different questions, see our restaurant closure and permit-suspension guide. A historical pass, conditional pass, closure, or reinstatement describes a dated regulatory event; it does not mean the restaurant is safe today.
Official sources checked September 27, 2026.