New Restaurant Openings API: NYC + Chicago Pre-Opening Health Inspections

Restaurants about to open (or opening this week) in New York City and Chicago, taken from the official health inspection each new food business must pass before it gets its permit or license:

• NYC: DOHMH "Pre-permit (Operational / Non-operational)" inspections (NYC Open Data, 43nn-pn8j)
• Chicago: CDPH "License" inspections (City of Chicago Data Portal, 4ijn-s7e5)

One row per establishment, with a signal type that separates real new operators from paperwork:

signalType	Meaning
new_operator_new_food_address	First-ever food inspection at this address. A new food space.
new_operator_existing_food_space	A different business taking over a former food space. priorBusinessAtAddress names the previous one.
relicense_same_name	Same name as the last business at the address: ownership or license change, not a new restaurant (excluded by default).
existing_license_reinspection	License already inspected before the window (excluded by default).

Who it is for: POS and payments sales teams, restaurant suppliers and food distributors, linen, pest control, grease-trap and hood-cleaning services, beverage reps, commercial insurers, and local media. You reach the business, at its storefront, the week it opens.

Sample (run 2026-10-21, last 30 days)

City	Business	Category	ZIP	Stage	Signal	Prior business at address	Latest inspection
New York	44 & X	American	10036	pre_opening_in_progress	new_operator_existing_food_space	SENZA GLUTEN BY JEMIKO	2026-10-17
New York	ADDA KITCHEN	Bangladeshi	11372	pre_opening_in_progress	new_operator_new_food_address		2026-10-17
New York	BAR LOLA	New American	10036	passed_pre_opening_inspection	new_operator_existing_food_space	TITO MURPHY'S	2026-10-17
Chicago	BEST AMIGOS GRILL	Restaurant	60651	pre_opening_in_progress	new_operator_existing_food_space	SO SOULFUL EATERY	2026-10-19
Chicago	JUST BUTTER CHICKEN	Restaurant	60657	passed_pre_opening_inspection	new_operator_existing_food_space	TASTE OF EGG	2026-10-16
Chicago	DADDY FOOD	Grocery Store	60639	passed_pre_opening_inspection	new_operator_existing_food_space	NORTH FAMILY MART INC.	2026-10-16

Last 30 days (run 2026-10-21): 308 new operators (240 NYC, 68 Chicago) out of 511 establishments with a pre-opening inspection; 157 had already passed, 150 were still in progress.

Input

Field	Default	Notes
days	30	Inspection window
cities	nyc, chicago
newEstablishmentsOnly	true	Keep only the two new-operator signal types
stages	all	pre_opening_in_progress, passed_pre_opening_inspection, closed_by_dohmh, not_opening
zipCodes, keyword		Territory and cuisine filters

Output fields

id, city, sourceId, businessName, akaName, category, address, borough, zip, latitude, longitude, stage, latestInspectionDate, latestInspectionType, latestResult, preOpeningInspections, firstPreOpeningDate, firstEverInspectionDate, isNewEstablishment, signalType, priorBusinessAtAddress, priorLastInspectionDate, riskLevel, nycScore, nycGrade, sourceUrl, source

Privacy

Neither source has owner or personal fields, and this Actor outputs no phone numbers or emails. Rows are businesses at commercial premises. Use for B2B outreach only, and follow CAN-SPAM, TCPA and do-not-call rules.

Accuracy (hand-checked 2026-10-21)

We hand-checked a random sample of 50 output rows (seed 20261021; 43 NYC, 7 Chicago) against the raw city inspection history for the same license/CAMIS, the same address and the same business name.

• New operator vs. not: 48 of 50 (96%) were genuinely new operators. 0 were re-inspections of an existing license. 2 were probably ownership or entity changes of a business already at the address: one Chicago paleteria relicensed under a slightly different name the day the old license closed, and one NYC business re-permitted under a new LLC name.
• Exact signal type and prior business: 46 of 50 (92%). Beyond the 2 rows above, 1 row was marked new_food_address because the earlier tenant was recorded as "7 AVENUE" and the new one as "7TH AVE". The other was in a multi-tenant building (1501 Broadway), where priorBusinessAtAddress named a co-tenant rather than a former occupant.
• A 50-row check has about ±7 points of sampling error. Treat these numbers as a guide, not a guarantee.

Coverage and limits

• Two cities only: New York City (all 5 boroughs, DOHMH pre-permit inspections) and Chicago (CDPH license inspections, food facility types by default). No other cities.
• Coverage is limited to what gets inspected. Businesses that open without a pre-opening inspection in these datasets are missing. Some NYC permit records show up only after the first inspection.
• Airports, malls, food halls and large buildings share one street address, so "new food address" and "prior business" are weakest there.
• Freshness depends on the portals. NYC typically lags a few days and Chicago about one day.
• An ownership change under a new name looks the same as a new operator in this data. The source has no owner fields, so the Actor can't tell them apart.
• Address matching uses house number plus street name. Unusual spellings can hide a prior tenant.

Attribution and terms

Sources: NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene via NYC Open Data (43nn-pn8j); City of Chicago Data Portal (4ijn-s7e5). Modifications: violation rows merged to one row per establishment, signal type and prior business derived by Ledger. Requests follow each portal's robots.txt Crawl-delay.

This site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. The data provided at this site is subject to change at any time. It is understood that the data provided at this site is being used at one's own risk.