Alameda County Restaurant Inspection Scraper

Scrape restaurant and food-facility health inspection records for Alameda County, California — Oakland, Berkeley, Fremont, Hayward, Livermore, Pleasanton, San Leandro, Alameda, Albany, Emeryville, Dublin, Union City, Newark, Piedmont, Castro Valley, San Lorenzo, Ashland, Sunol, and Akron. Get facility name, address, ZIP code, inspection date, color-coded placard grade (Green/Yellow/Red), violation descriptions, and precise geolocation — sourced directly from the county's public health department open-data feed. No login, no cookies, no paid proxy required.

What this actor does

• Five lookup modes: search by restaurant name, browse by city, look up an exact facility ID, browse by ZIP code, or find inspections near a lat/lon point
• Rich filtering: placard grade, inspection service code, ZIP code, and inspection-date range — usable together or in any combination, on top of any mode
• Live county data — pulled straight from Alameda County's public ArcGIS open-data feed, refreshed by the county on an ongoing basis
• Geolocation on every record — latitude/longitude plus a ready-to-click Google Maps link
• Empty fields are omitted — every emitted record only contains fields that could actually be populated

Output per inspection record

• facilityId — county facility identifier (e.g. FA0000154)
• externalId, objectId — internal record identifiers
• facilityName, address, city, state, zipCode
• latitude, longitude
• activityDate — inspection date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• inspectionServiceCode — county inspection/activity service code
• violationDescription — the specific violation noted during this inspection
• grade — posted placard letter (G/Y/R/C/M)
• gradeLabel — friendly label for G (Green — Pass), Y (Yellow — Conditional Pass), R (Red — Closed/Failed)
• mapUrl — Google Maps link built from the facility's coordinates
• sourceUrl — the live county REST endpoint returning this exact record
• recordType: "restaurantInspection", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	search	search / byCity / byFacilityId / byZip / nearby
searchQuery	string	pizza	Facility-name keyword (mode=search)
cities	array (select)	–	Cities to browse or filter to (mode=byCity, or an extra filter on any mode)
facilityIds	array	–	Exact facility IDs (mode=byFacilityId)
latitude / longitude	number	37.8044 / -122.2712	Center point (mode=nearby)
radiusKm	number	2	Search radius in km (mode=nearby)
grades	array (select)	–	Filter by placard grade(s)
inspectionServiceCodes	array (select)	–	Filter by county service code(s)
zipCodes	array	–	ZIP codes to browse (mode=byZip), or an extra filter on any mode
dateFrom / dateTo	string	–	Inspection date range (YYYY-MM-DD)
sortBy	select	newest	newest / oldest (by inspection date)
maxItems	integer	100	Hard cap on emitted records (1–5000)

Example: search a keyword, restrict to one city and grade

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "taqueria",
  "cities": ["OAKLAND"],
  "grades": ["G"],
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: browse every inspection in a city within a date range

{
  "mode": "byCity",
  "cities": ["BERKELEY", "ALBANY"],
  "dateFrom": "2025-01-01",
  "dateTo": "2025-12-31",
  "maxItems": 500
}

Example: browse every inspection in a ZIP code

{
  "mode": "byZip",
  "zipCodes": ["94612", "94607"],
  "maxItems": 200
}

Example: exact facility lookup

{
  "mode": "byFacilityId",
  "facilityIds": ["FA0000154"]
}

Example: inspections near a point

{
  "mode": "nearby",
  "latitude": 37.8044,
  "longitude": -122.2712,
  "radiusKm": 1.5,
  "maxItems": 100
}

Use cases

• Consumer safety apps — surface up-to-date placard grades near a user's location
• Real-estate / relocation research — check food-safety history around a neighborhood before moving
• Journalism & public-health research — track violation trends across Alameda County cities over time
• Restaurant discovery apps — filter listings to Green-placard establishments only
• Compliance monitoring — franchise operators tracking inspection history for their own locations by facility ID

FAQ

What area does this cover? All cities and unincorporated communities in Alameda County, CA served by the county's Department of Environmental Health (the City of Berkeley runs its own health department but is included in this feed where reported).

What do the grade letters mean? G (Green) = Pass, Y (Yellow) = Conditional Pass (two or more major violations), R (Red) = Notice of Closure. C and M are rarer county-specific categories (e.g. cottage-food/home-kitchen operations) without a documented public meaning — the raw letter is always included.

Is one row per restaurant or per violation? One output record = one violation line item tied to a specific inspection visit. A single inspection with 5 noted violations produces 5 records sharing the same facilityId and activityDate.

How current is the data? The county updates the feed on an ongoing basis; records typically appear within days of the inspection.

Do I need a proxy or login? No. This is a public, unauthenticated open-data API — no cookies, no paid proxy, no API key.

Can I search multiple cities or grades at once? Yes — cities, grades, inspectionServiceCodes, and zipCodes all accept multiple values and are combined with AND logic across filter types, OR logic within each filter.

What if my filters match nothing? The actor finishes cleanly with 0 records and a status message explaining that no matches were found — try widening the date range or removing a filter.