🌭 Chicago Food Inspection Scraper

🚀 Pull Chicago Department of Public Health food inspection results with pass/fail outcomes, risk levels, and violation details.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-25 · 📊 20 fields per record · 250,000+ inspection records · all licensed Chicago food establishments

The Chicago Food Inspection Scraper pulls live results from the City of Chicago Department of Public Health open data portal. Each record carries the establishment name, license number, address, risk category, inspection type, pass/fail outcome, and the full text of violations cited.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Journalists and civic-tech researchers	Public-records reporting, accountability dashboards
Real-estate and insurance analysts	Neighborhood risk modeling, due diligence
Marketers and lead-gen teams	Business prospecting, market sizing
Data engineers and BI teams	ETL pipelines, automated alerting
Academics and urban planners	Policy research, public-health analysis

📋 What the Chicago Food Inspections Scraper does

• Pulls live records from the official open-data API in batches of up to 1,000 rows per request
• Lets you filter by the source's own native columns before download (no post-processing required)
• Returns one normalized JSON row per record with stable, predictable field names
• Pushes results to a clean Apify dataset that exports to CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML
• Auto-paginates so you can pull thousands of records in one run

💡 Why it matters: government open-data portals throttle, rate-limit, and break under heavy load. This actor wraps the official endpoint, handles pagination, normalizes nulls, and gives you a stable schema even when the source UI rearranges its dashboard.

🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon - GIF demo of the actor running in Apify Console.

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
maxItems	integer	No	How many records to pull. Free plan caps at 10.
Filters	string	No	Optional source-native filters narrow results before download.

{
  "maxItems": 100
}

{
  "maxItems": 500
}

⚠️ Good to Know: the source endpoint is a public government open-data API. Records reflect what the agency has published as of its most recent refresh cycle and may not be real-time.

📊 Output

Field	Description
imageUrl	Image URL (always null for tabular records)
title	Primary record title (business name or activity)
url	Link back to the open data portal page
id	Stable identifier for this record
inspection_id	Source field inspection_id
dba_name	Source field dba_name
aka_name	Source field aka_name
license_	Source field license_
facility_type	Source field facility_type
risk	Source field risk
address	Source field address
city	Source field city
state	Source field state
zip	Source field zip
inspection_date	Source field inspection_date
inspection_type	Source field inspection_type
results	Source field results
violations	Source field violations
latitude	Source field latitude
longitude	Source field longitude
sourceUrl	Open data portal URL
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp when the row was collected
error	Error message (null on success) - always last

Sample records

[
  {
    "imageUrl": null,
    "title": "SUBWAY 24453",
    "url": "https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-Services/Food-Inspections/4ijn-s7e5",
    "id": "2637321",
    "inspection_id": "2637321",
    "dba_name": "SUBWAY 24453",
    "aka_name": "SUBWAY 24453",
    "license_": "2856691",
    "facility_type": "Restaurant",
    "risk": "Risk 1 (High)",
    "address": "111 N WABASH AVE",
    "city": "CHICAGO",
    "state": "IL",
    "zip": "60602",
    "inspection_date": "2026-05-22T00:00:00.000",
    "inspection_type": "Canvass",
    "results": "Pass w/ Conditions",
    "violations": "3. MANAGEMENT, FOOD EMPLOYEE AND CONDITIONAL EMPLOYEE; KNOWLEDGE, RESPONSIBILITIES AND REPORTING - Comments: OBSERVED SEVERAL MISSING SIGNED EMPLOYEE HEALTH POLICIES FOR EMPLOYEES MUST PROVIDE AND MAINTAIN.(PRIORITY FOUNDATION 7-38-010)(CITATION ISSUED) | 36. THERMOMETERS PROVIDED & ACCURATE - Comments: OBSERVED NO INTERIOR THERMOMETER FOR 2- DOOR PREP COOLER IN FRONT PREP AREA MUST PROVIDE AND MAINTAIN. | 37. FOOD PROPERLY LABELED; ORIGINAL CONTAINER - Comments: MUST LABEL FOOD STORAGE CONTAINERS WHEN FOOD IS NOT IN ORIGINAL PACKAGE WITH COMMON NAME(SHAKERS) | 39. CONTAMINATION PREVENTED DURING FOOD PREPARATION, STORAGE & DISPLAY - Comments: MUST PROVIDE A SPLASH GAURD AT FRONT HAND SINK NEXT TO PANS ON COUNTER TOP TO PREVENT CONTAMINATION. | 47. FOOD & NON-FOOD CONTACT SURFACES CLEANABLE, PROPERLY DESIGNED, CONSTRUCTED & USED - Comments: MUST REPAIR OR REPLACE WORN CUTTING BOARDS ON TOPSIDE OF COLD LINE TO BE IN GOOD REPAIR. | 49. NON-FOOD/FOOD CONTACT SURFACES CLEAN - Comments: MUST CLEAN SPILLAGE IN LOWER CABINET AT SODA MACHINE IN DINING AREA. | 55. PHYSICAL FACILITIES INSTALLED, MAINTAINED & CLEAN - Comments: MUST PROVIDE A HOOKING SYSTEM TO HANG UP WET MOPS. | 58. ALLERGEN TRAINING AS REQUIRED - Comments: OBSERVED NO FOOD ALLERGEN TRAINING FOR FOOD MANAGERS MUST PROVIDE AND MAINTAIN. | 60. PREVIOUS CORE VIOLATION CORRECTED - Comments: PREVIOUS CORE VIOLATION FROM REPORT #2628354 12/11/25 NOT CORRECTED-#57-2-102.13: EXPIRED FOOD HANDLER CERTIFICATES PROVIDED FOR ALL FOOD HANDLERS. INSTRUCTED TO PROVIDE PROOF OF FOOD HANDLER TRAINING FOR ALL FOOD HANDLERS.(PRIORITY FOUNDATION 7-42-090)(CITATION ISSUED) | 64. MISCELLANEOUS / PUBLIC HEALTH ORDERS - Comments: OBSERVED DEFAULT BEVERAGE ON KIDS MEAL CHOCOLATE MILK AT 140 CALORIES NEEDS TO BE 130 OR LESS CALORIES AND MAINTAIN.",
    "latitude": 41.88352649174743,
    "longitude": -87.62608219678731,
    "sourceUrl": "https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-Services/Food-Inspections/4ijn-s7e5",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-05-25T17:54:47.085Z",
    "error": null
  },
  {
    "imageUrl": null,
    "title": "NICKY'S",
    "url": "https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-Services/Food-Inspections/4ijn-s7e5",
    "id": "2637326",
    "inspection_id": "2637326",
    "dba_name": "NICKY'S",
    "aka_name": "NICKY'S",
    "license_": "7813",
    "facility_type": "Restaurant",
    "risk": "Risk 1 (High)",
    "address": "5801 S KEDZIE AVE",
    "city": "CHICAGO",
    "state": "IL",
    "zip": "60629",
    "inspection_date": "2026-05-22T00:00:00.000",
    "inspection_type": "Short Form Complaint",
    "results": "Pass",
    "violations": "10. ADEQUATE HANDWASHING SINKS PROPERLY SUPPLIED AND ACCESSIBLE - Comments: OBSERVED NO HANDWASHING SIGNAGE IN CUSTOMER RESTROOM. INSTRUCTED PERSON IN CHARGE HANDWASHING SIGNAGE IS REQUIRED AT ALL HANDSINKS.  | 16. FOOD-CONTACT SURFACES: CLEANED & SANITIZED - Comments: OBSERVED RUST ON INTERIOR SIDE OF ICE MACHINE/SCREWS. INSTRUCTED PERSON TO REMOVE AND REPLACE. | 49. NON-FOOD/FOOD CONTACT SURFACES CLEAN - Comments:  OBSERVED BUILD UP ON INTERIOR OF 2-DOOR COLD HOLD UNIT IN REAR OF FACILITY. INSTRUCTED PERSON IN CHARGE TO CLEAN AND MAINTAIN.",
    "latitude": 41.787976364169765,
    "longitude": -87.70325124213517,
    "sourceUrl": "https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-Services/Food-Inspections/4ijn-s7e5",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-05-25T17:54:47.151Z",
    "error": null
  }
]

✨ Why choose this Actor

Feature	What it means
🟢 Live data	Pulls directly from the source API on every run
🔄 Auto-pagination	Walks the dataset 1,000 rows at a time
🎯 Native filters	Filter by the columns the source already indexes
📦 Stable schema	One row, one record, no nested table reshapes
💾 Multiple formats	CSV, Excel, JSON, XML on the dataset page

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Option	Effort	Pagination	Filters	Refresh
This actor	Run once	Built-in	Built-in	Per run
Direct API	Write SoQL by hand	DIY	DIY	DIY
CSV portal export	Download megabytes every time	None	Limited	Manual
Custom scraper	Weeks of engineering	DIY	DIY	DIY

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account (free credits included)
2. Open the actor page
3. Set maxItems and any filters you need
4. Click Run
5. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML

💼 Business use cases

Market intelligence

Track the volume, type, and geography of records over time to surface trends before competitors do.

Compliance and risk

Pull official records for due diligence, vendor screening, insurance underwriting, or KYC workflows.

Lead generation

Filter the feed to surface businesses or properties matching a target profile.

Reporting and BI

Pipe the dataset into BI tools for ongoing public-records dashboards.

🔌 Automating Chicago Food Inspections Scraper

Connect this actor to Make, Zapier, Slack, Airbyte, GitHub Actions, n8n, Pipedream, or Google Drive through the standard Apify integrations to run the scraper on a schedule and push results downstream automatically.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

Research

Academics use this data for urban studies, public-health epidemiology, and policy analysis.

Personal

Curious citizens can audit their own neighborhood or block-level activity.

Non-profit

Civic-tech and accountability organizations track service delivery, equity, and government performance.

Experimentation

Data-science learners get a clean real-world dataset for ML practice.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Paste the URL of this page into ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or GitHub Copilot and ask: "How would I use this scraper to build X?"

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🟦 Is this real-time? It pulls the most recent data the source agency has published. Refresh cadence depends on the agency (often nightly or weekly).

🟦 Do I need an API key? No. The source endpoint is public.

🟦 What if a filter returns zero rows? The actor pushes a single {error: ...} record explaining the empty result so your pipelines do not silently fail.

🟦 Can I run this on a schedule? Yes. Configure a schedule on the Apify Console for hourly, daily, or weekly runs.

🟦 Can I get more than 10 records? Upgrade to a paid plan. Free users get a 10-record preview.

🟦 What export formats are supported? CSV, Excel (XLSX), JSON, XML, RSS, and HTML from the dataset page.

🟦 Does this respect rate limits? Yes. The actor uses a single sequential pagination loop.

🟦 Will field names change? Field names are pinned to source API column names. If the source changes column IDs you may need an updated actor build.

🟦 Can I use this commercially? The source data is public-domain government information. Always re-read the source's terms of use for your specific commercial application.

🟦 What about privacy? This actor only returns data the agency has chosen to publish to the open-data portal. Records the agency suppresses are not included.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Make · Zapier · Slack · Airbyte · GitHub Actions · Google Drive · Webhooks · REST API · n8n · Pipedream · Bubble · Retool · Power Automate · Airtable · Notion.

🔗 Recommended Actors

Actor	What it does
NYC Restaurant Inspections	NYC DOHMH grades and violations
Chicago Food Inspections	Chicago Department of Public Health results
LA Business Licenses	LA City active business registry
NYC DCWP Business Licenses	Every NYC consumer-protection licensed business
Chicago 311 Service Requests	All Chicago non-emergency complaints

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: independent tool, not affiliated with Chicago Food Inspections or its publishing agency. Only publicly available data is collected.