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

Required postings are the cheapest compliance on this site and the most commonly half-done. A laminated pack bought online covers the federal basics and misses the one requirement that exists only because you serve food.

Here is what Ohio actually asks a kitchen to display, with the rule behind each.

The choking standards — the foodservice-specific one

Nobody outside this industry has heard of it, and it applies to every licensed food service operation in the state.

The director of health provides standards detailing first aid techniques designed and intended for use by a person without medical training in removing food which has become lodged in the throat of a choking victim — and the food service operation must ensure that the standards are readily accessible to the public and the employees.¹

Two things worth reading precisely.

The rule never says “poster.” It says the standards must be readily accessible to the public and the employees. The Department publishes a poster as the practical way to satisfy that, in English and Spanish.²³

“The public and the employees” is doing work. A copy in the office satisfies the second half and not the first. It has to be where guests are, not only where staff are — which for most rooms means a wall people can see from the dining area, not the inside of a kitchen door.

If your staff read Spanish more comfortably than English, post both. The Department publishes both for a reason, and the standard is accessible, which is a question about the reader rather than about the paper.

The minimum wage summary — and it no longer needs a wall

This one changed on July 21, 2025, and most operators have not caught up.

Every employer subject to Ohio’s minimum fair wage standards must keep a summary of those sections, approved by the director of commerce, posted in one of the following ways:⁴

1. In a conspicuous and accessible place in or about the premises where employees work, or
2. On the internet in a manner that is accessible to the employer’s employees

Option two is new. If your handbook, scheduling app or staff portal is where people actually look, the summary can live there. That is a genuine relaxation for kitchens with no back-of-house wall to spare — and it is the version of the rule almost nobody is operating under, because the poster habit predates it.

Get the summary from Commerce rather than from a poster vendor. The director is required to publish it on the department’s website and update it at least annually to reflect changes in the minimum wage rate.⁴ Ohio’s minimum indexes every January — see wages, overtime and tips — so a poster printed two years ago is displaying the wrong number, which is worse than displaying nothing.

Commerce also publishes a minor labor laws poster, which matters if you employ anyone under eighteen.⁶ The serving-age rules that sit alongside it are in minors and serving ages.

No-smoking signage — with the detail most signs miss

“No Smoking” signs or the international no-smoking symbol must be conspicuously posted in every public place and place of employment where smoking is prohibited, including at each entrance, large enough to be clearly legible to a person of normal vision — and all signs shall contain a telephone number for reporting violations.⁵

That telephone number is the requirement almost every sign fails. A decal from a restaurant supplier is a picture; the rule asks for a picture and a phone number. Full detail, including which patios are exempt and the doorway that undoes the exemption, is in smoking and vaping.

While you are checking signs: all ashtrays must be removed from anywhere smoking is prohibited.⁵

The federal layer, honestly

There is a real federal set — job safety, equal employment opportunity, family and medical leave, polygraph protection — and we are deliberately not listing them individually here.

Two reasons. Most of them switch on at employee-count thresholds rather than applying to every business, so a flat list would tell a six-person kitchen to display things it does not need. And the poster versions change, which means any list we printed would rot quietly while looking authoritative.

Get the current set from the U.S. Department of Labor and OSHA directly. Both publish free downloads, and free is the correct price — the paid poster services exist because compliance anxiety sells, not because the posters cost money.

Two more things on the wall

Your license. Keep it displayed and keep the back of it legible: if your licensor placed restrictions or conditions limiting the food types you may prepare, those are posted on the back of the license. That mechanism is explained in ghost kitchens and virtual brands, and it applies to any operation whose approved plan is narrower than its ambitions.

Your cleaning schedule, if you have built one. Not required — but the code hands you the interval and the burden of defending it, and a schedule on the wall is what turns “as often as necessary” into a document. The schedule builder prints one.

The short version

1. Choking standards readily accessible to the public and employees — English and Spanish both published.¹
2. Minimum wage summary, on the premises or online where employees can reach it, since July 2025.⁴
3. Get that summary from Commerce, which updates it annually — an old poster shows a wrong rate.⁴
4. No-smoking signs at every entrance, with a reporting telephone number.⁵
5. Minor labor laws poster if you employ anyone under eighteen.⁶
6. Federal posters are free from DOL and OSHA, and most are threshold-based.

Requirements change. The choking rule was last amended in 2024 and the posting statute in 2025, which is a fair indication of how often this quietly moves.