NYC Restaurant Inspections Scraper

NYC Restaurant Inspections Scraper

Scrape NYC restaurant inspection results from the DOHMH, up to a million per run. Every record includes the grade, violation details, score, and inspection date. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The NYC Department of Health publishes restaurant inspection data, but browsing it manually means clicking through individual records. This Actor reads the public inspection feed directly, filtered by borough or letter grade, and returns each match in one fixed schema.

Who uses it	What they scrape NYC Department of Health for
Public health researchers	Analyze violation patterns across boroughs over time.
Restaurant owners	Monitor competitor grades and common violation types.
Food journalists	Find stories about the cleanest or dirtiest kitchens in the city.
App developers	Build a neighborhood dining guide with health grade overlays.

What it does

This Actor collects NYC restaurant inspection records from the DOHMH and returns each one as a flat row.

• 🏙️ Borough filter: limit results to Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, or Staten Island.
• 📊 Grade filter: pull only A, B, C, Not Yet Graded, Pending, or Closed inspections.
• 📦 Bulk collection: set a high maxItems to download the full dataset in one run.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with NYC Department of Health data

📈 Track borough health trends.

A public health researcher collects all Bronx inspections from the last month to see if violation types are shifting.

🍽️ Audit a competitor.

A restaurant owner pulls every grade for nearby Manhattan eateries to understand the local inspection climate.

🗞️ Find a food story.

A journalist scrapes all pending-grade inspections citywide to identify restaurants awaiting their first score.

📍 Build a safety map.

An app developer collects the latest grade for every Queens restaurant to power a map-based dining guide.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API registration	Reads the public inspection feed with zero authentication.
Fixed flat schema	Every row has the same columns, ready for analysis.
CSV, JSON, Excel, XML	Export in the format your tools already accept.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets NYC Department of Health the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	NYC Restaurant Inspections Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When NYC Department of Health 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 by setting a maximum number of inspections, and optionally narrow the dataset by borough and letter grade before download. 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

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the NYC Restaurant Inspections Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. 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 NYC Department of Health 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/nyc-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 your filter combination. Selecting a borough and a grade that rarely occur together may return zero records. Try broadening one filter.

The run stopped before reaching my maxItems.

The Actor stops when there are no more matching inspections. If you hit a low ceiling, try removing the borough or grade filter.

Some fields are empty in my dataset.

Empty fields reflect missing data in the source. For example, a restaurant may not yet have a grade or score if the inspection is pending.

The run is taking a long time.

Large maxItems values mean more pages to fetch. Reduce maxItems or add a borough filter to narrow the scope and speed up the run.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What data does this Actor return?	It returns NYC restaurant inspection records including the restaurant name, address, inspection date, letter grade, score, and violation details.
Can I filter by a specific borough?	Yes. Use the Borough input to limit results to Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, or Staten Island.
Can I get only A-graded restaurants?	Yes. Set the Grade filter to 'A' and the Actor will return only inspections that received an A.
How many inspections can I collect?	You can set maxItems up to 1,000,000 per run. The Actor stops when it reaches that count or runs out of matching records.
Does this include violation descriptions?	Yes. Each inspection row includes the specific violation codes and their descriptions as published by the DOHMH.
Is an API key required?	No. This Actor reads the public inspection feed and requires no registration or API key.
What export formats are supported?	You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform.
How often is the inspection data updated?	The Actor pulls live data from the DOHMH on each run, so you always get the latest published inspections.
Can I schedule this Actor to run weekly?	Yes. Use Apify's scheduler to run the Actor on a recurring basis and track new inspections automatically.
Does this Actor handle pagination?	Yes. It automatically follows pages until it reaches your maxItems limit or the end of the dataset.

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 New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. 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.