ParseForge
LA County Restaurant Inspection Scraper
parseforge/la-restaurant-inspections-scraper
News & mediaOther
Scrapes LA County restaurant inspection records by city or grade and returns each one as a flat row with facility name, address, grade, and date.
- Total users
- 2
- Monthly active
- 1
- Total runs
- 104
- Bookmarked
- 0
- Rating
- Not rated yet
- Last modified
- 9 days ago
Overview
LA County Restaurant Inspection Scraper
Scrape LA County restaurant inspection grades and violations, up to a million per run. Every record includes the facility name, address, city, grade, and inspection date. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
LA County publishes restaurant inspection results on its public health website, but there is no bulk download and the search interface is slow for research. This Actor reads the public inspection records directly, filtered by city or grade, and returns each match in one fixed schema.
| Who uses it | What they scrape LA County Restaurant Inspections for |
|---|---|
| Food safety consultants | Which restaurants in a city have B or C grades and need help improving |
| Restaurant owners | How their own inspection grade compares to competitors in the same city |
| Journalists | Which neighborhoods have the most low-grade restaurants for a story |
| App developers | A clean dataset of inspection grades to power a restaurant finder |
What it does
This Actor collects LA County restaurant inspection records by city or grade, and returns each one as a flat row.
- 🏙️ City filter: narrow results to one city, like Los Angeles or Pasadena.
- 🏅 Grade filter: return only A, B, or C grades, or leave blank for all.
- 🔢 Max items: cap the run from 1 to 1,000,000 inspections.
Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.
What you can do with LA County Restaurant Inspections data
📊 Monitor a city's grades.
A food safety consultant runs the Actor weekly for Los Angeles and flags every new B or C grade to offer training.
📈 Compare your restaurant.
A restaurant owner pulls all grades in Pasadena to see how their A grade stacks up against nearby competitors.
🗞️ Investigate neighborhoods.
A journalist collects all C grades in the county to map which areas have the most low-scoring restaurants.
📱 Build a restaurant app.
A developer scrapes the full county dataset once, then filters by city to power a local dining guide.
Why choose this scraper
| What you get | |
|---|---|
| No API key | Reads the public inspection site directly, no registration or OAuth. |
| Fixed schema | Every record has the same fields, so you can merge runs without cleaning. |
| Bulk export | Download as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML for analysis or upload to your own tools. |
How it compares
No other Store actor targets LA County Restaurant Inspections the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.
| LA County Restaurant Inspection Scraper | Build it in-house | By hand | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Run it now, zero config | Days of engineering | None, but hours per pull |
| When LA County Restaurant Inspections changes | Maintained for you | You fix it | You re-learn the page |
| Proxies, retries, anti-bot | Built in | Your problem | Browser only |
| Output | Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export | Whatever you build | Copy-paste |
| Cost | Pay per result | Engineering time | Analyst hours |
Configure the run
Drive the Actor with an optional city and grade, and set a maximum number of inspections per run. The Input tab lists every parameter.
A first run with the defaults:
{
"maxItems": 10
}
A larger pull:
{
"maxItems": 200
}
Pricing
Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.
| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $2.10 |
| 1,000 results | $21.00 |
| 10,000 results | $210.00 |
New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.
Free users
Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.
Run it
- Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
- Open the LA County Restaurant Inspection Scraper.
- Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
- Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.
Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.
Use with AI agents (MCP)
Give an AI agent live access to LA County Restaurant Inspections through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/la-restaurant-inspections-scraper"
Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.
Troubleshooting
Why am I getting no results?
Check the city spelling against the LA County inspection site. If you set a grade, try leaving it blank to see if any records exist for that city.
Why did the run stop before my max items?
The Actor stops when it has collected the number you set, or when there are no more matching inspections. Lower the max or remove filters to get more.
Why is the city filter not working?
The city must match the name used by LA County, such as 'Los Angeles' not 'LA'. Try a partial name or check the site's city list.
Why are some grades missing?
Not every inspection has a grade, especially recent ones. The Actor returns what is published, so some rows may have an empty grade.
Can I get more than 1,000,000 records?
No, the maximum is 1,000,000 per run. If you need more, split by city or run multiple times with different filters.
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What data does this Actor return? | Each row includes the facility name, street address, city, grade, and inspection date, as shown on the LA County public health site. |
| Can I filter by city? | Yes, enter a city name in the City field to return only inspections from that city. |
| Can I filter by grade? | Yes, choose A, B, or C from the Grade dropdown, or leave it blank to get all grades. |
| How many inspections can I get in one run? | Set the Maximum inspections field from 1 to 1,000,000. The Actor stops after that many records. |
| Do I need an API key or login? | No, the Actor reads the public inspection website directly, so no registration is required. |
| What export formats are supported? | You can download the results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify dataset. |
| Is the data updated? | The Actor scrapes the live LA County site each time you run it, so you get the latest published inspections. |
| Can I schedule this Actor? | Yes, use Apify's scheduler to run it daily, weekly, or monthly and track changes over time. |
| Does it include violation details? | The Actor returns the grade and inspection date, but not the full violation text. Check the sample output for exact fields. |
| What if I get no results? | Make sure the city name is spelled exactly as it appears on the LA County site, and try leaving the grade blank. |
Related actors
Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.
🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.
⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by County of Los Angeles Public Health. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.
Input
| Field | Type | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| maxItems | integer | How many inspections to collect per run. | 10 |
| city | string | City | not set |
| grade | string (4 options) | Grade | not set |
Pricing
from $19.00 per 1,000 results
| Charged for | What it is | Price each |
|---|---|---|
| result | Single result in the default dataset. | $0.019 to $0.021 |
Tiered: the lower figure is the price on a higher Apify plan. Billing and the free credit live on Apify.
API
One POST returns the dataset directly. Same shape for every scraper in the library, so swapping the slug is the only change.
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parseforge~la-restaurant-inspections-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"helloWorld": 123
}' Examples
Input that runs as-is.
{
"helloWorld": 123
} Reviews
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Issues
We build and maintain this scraper, so a problem with it comes to us. Report it on the Apify listing and the thread stays attached to the scraper where the next person can find it: open an issue.
Broken and urgent, or you would rather not post in public? Write to parseforge@protonmail.com and it reaches the people who wrote it.
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