Restaurant or bar

Before you sign anything

• How to get a food service license in Cuyahoga County

  Which agency licenses you (it depends on your address), what plan review costs and how long it takes, how risk levels are assigned, and the order the inspections have to happen in.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• What it costs to open a restaurant in Cleveland

  The permit and licensing fees you can actually verify, agency by agency, plus an honest account of the costs that dwarf them and the one that costs most of all.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• What drives the cost of a commercial kitchen build-out

  Nobody can quote your kitchen from a square footage. What they can tell you is which decisions move the number by tens of thousands — and what the health district requires your drawings to show before anyone is allowed to build.

  Last verified August 10, 2026

• Occupancy limits and how many restrooms you need

  How Ohio calculates the number of people your dining room may legally hold, how that number decides your restroom count, and why a bar needs almost twice the fixtures of a restaurant the same size.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

Designing and building the kitchen

• Where things go in a commercial kitchen, and why

  What the code actually dictates about equipment placement, what it leaves to you, and the adjacencies that quietly cost money later — including why the reach-in should not live next to the fryer.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• Replacing a hood, and the grandfathering that is not what you think it is

  Operators believe an old fire suppression system is protected because it was legal when it went in. In Ohio that protection is real, conditional, and revocable by one person's opinion — and replacing the hood is the moment it usually ends.

  Last verified August 10, 2026

• Warewashing temperatures, hot water, and picking a machine

  Every warewashing temperature Ohio actually requires, why the number on your machine's data plate matters more than the number in the code, and how to size hot water before you sign for equipment.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• Water — what the code requires, what filtration actually fixes, and the carbonator rule

  Water decides your ice, your coffee, your dish results and how long your equipment lasts. Ohio's code says less about treating it than you would expect, and more than most operators know about one specific device — the carbonator.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• Snow, ice, dumpsters and odor — the outside of the building

  Ohio's natural accumulation rule and why clearing a lot badly can create liability that doing nothing would not have, which de-icer to use on concrete, and what the code actually requires of your dumpster pad.

  Last verified August 9, 2026

Running it without failing an inspection

• What has to be in the kitchen before your inspection

  The physical things that must be present, stocked, and working on the day the inspector walks in — plus the ones people forget and fail on.

  Last verified August 9, 2026

• Cooking, cooling, holding and date marking temperatures

  Every time and temperature Ohio actually requires, in the order a kitchen meets them — cook, hold, cool, reheat, date mark — plus the consumer advisory wording and the freezing rule for raw fish.

  Last verified August 9, 2026

• Employee illness — what you must ask, and when to send someone home

  Ohio requires every food employee to report specific symptoms and diagnoses to you, and requires you to prove you told them. Here is the reportable list, the difference between restriction and exclusion, and the paperwork behind both.

  Last verified August 9, 2026

• Food safety certification in Ohio, and where to get it near Cleveland

  Ohio has two certifications, not one. Which you need depends on your risk level and your license date — and one of them has no exam at all. Plus the approved providers in all seven Northeast Ohio counties.

  Last verified August 9, 2026

• Baffle filters, condenser coils, and the intervals nobody actually gives you

  Ask how often to clean a hood filter or a condenser coil and Ohio's food code mostly answers "as often as necessary". That is not evasion — it is the code handing you the schedule and the burden of defending it. Here is who really sets each interval.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• What has to be on your wall — postings, signs and the choking poster

  Three things Ohio requires a kitchen to display, and one of them changed in 2025 so it no longer has to be on a wall at all. The choking poster is the one nobody outside foodservice has ever heard of.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• Sushi rice, fresh juice, soft serve and a hunter's deer — the special processes

  Four things a kitchen can do that most cannot, each with its own rule: rice acidified to shelf stability needs a HACCP plan, packaged fresh juice needs a warning label or a variance, a heat-treatment soft serve machine runs on a clock with a lockout, and custom-processing game has an order of operations you cannot vary.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

If you serve alcohol or use the outdoors

• Outdoor dining in Cleveland — the patio license, and the second permit nobody mentions

  What the Cleveland Outdoor Restaurant License costs, what to submit, when it expires, and why serving on a sidewalk triggers a separate permit from a different city division.

  Last verified August 9, 2026

• Serving alcohol outside — patios, sidewalks, DORAs and events

  Three different mechanisms let you serve alcohol outdoors in Ohio and people mix them up constantly. One is a permanent change to your permit, one is a ten-days-notice filing, and one is not yours to create at all.

  Last verified August 10, 2026

• Smoking and vaping — the patio geometry that decides it

  Ohio's ban covers vaping, which surprises people. Whether your patio is exempt is a question about roofs and walls with a specific answer — and propping the door open can quietly turn the patio back into a dining room.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• Children in the dining room, and who is old enough to pour

  Most of what operators believe about minors in a bar is house policy or another state's law. Ohio's actual rules are about who may be sold a drink and who may sell one across a bar — and the second has two different ages.

  Last verified August 10, 2026

• Beer lines and bar glassware — the rules that come from Liquor Control, not the health department

  Ohio requires beer lines cleaned every fourteen days, a signed record card kept on the premises for two years, and bar glassware sanitized at 150 ppm chlorine. None of it is enforced by your health district.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• Dogs on your patio — what Ohio requires if you allow them

  Ohio lets you allow dogs in an outdoor dining area. Doing it legally means signs at every entrance, an outdoor-only route in, a five-foot rule, and a written policy — and service animals are a separate question with a different answer.

  Last verified August 10, 2026

The business around the kitchen

• Insurance — what Ohio actually requires, and what your landlord demands instead

  Only a short list is required by law, and one item on it can only be bought from the state. Everything else is demanded by a lease, a lender or a commissary — which is why limits are set by contract rather than by square footage.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• Sales tax on food — the dine-in question, and the drink that is always taxable

  Ohio taxes food eaten on your premises and exempts food taken away, which sounds simple until you learn what counts as your premises. Soft drinks are taxable either way, and getting it wrong is personally liable.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• Wages, overtime and tips — the two thresholds that give different answers

  Ohio's minimum wage and Ohio's overtime rule use different revenue thresholds, so a restaurant can be under one and over the other. The tipped wage is constitutionally half the minimum, and proving it is your job.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• Music, TV and sports licensing for restaurants and bars

  Why a Spotify playlist is not legal in your dining room, what a commercial music service actually buys you, the small-business broadcast exemption most operators qualify for, and how bars legally show the game.

  Last verified August 9, 2026

• POS, Wi-Fi, phones, texting and delivery apps — the compliance parts

  The rules attached to the systems you install: PCI segmentation for guest Wi-Fi, the federal 911 requirements your phone system has to meet, consent rules for text marketing, and how Ohio taxes delivery fees.

  Last verified August 9, 2026

• When a second location changes the rules — the thresholds that catch growing operators

  Growth does not trip one switch. Different obligations are measured three different ways — by locations, by headcount added up across every entity you own, and by revenue — and the one most people never see coming is revenue.

  Last verified August 10, 2026

Suppliers and services

Directory categories operators in this position ask for most. Every listing is free and unpaid.

• General contractors — restaurant build-out

• Equipment service & repair

• Hood & exhaust cleaning

• Restaurant supply & equipment dealers

• POS, payments & reservations

• Insurance & risk

Reading a different way

This is a view, not a separate library — every guide above also lives in the topic index. If you want the underlying rules instead, every rule in Ohio’s food code is listed with what it governs. Other operation types.