Convenience store or gas station

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• Selling food from a convenience store or gas station — which license, and when you need none

  A store is licensed on a different track from a restaurant, under the same food code. The two things worth knowing: adding a hot case usually does not mean a second license, and a small enough store may need no food license at all.

  Last verified August 12, 2026

• 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

If you handle food beyond packaged goods

• 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

• 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

• 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

Equipment and premises

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

Growing

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

Suppliers and services

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

• Restaurant supply & equipment dealers

• Food distributors

• Equipment service & repair

• POS, payments & reservations

• Waste, recycling & composting

• 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.