Tool
Your kitchen
Everything else on this site is true of every kitchen in Northeast Ohio, which is what makes it thorough and what makes it tiring. Answer eight questions and this assembles the part that is true of yours — with the citations still attached, and a print button, because the useful place for it is a wall rather than a browser.
Your answers stay in this browser.
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Your kitchen — compliance reference
Choose your municipality above and the document assembles itself here.
Who licenses you
Cleveland Department of Public Health
601 Lakeside Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114
216-664-2000
www.clevelandohio.gov/city-hall/departments/public-health/programs-services/food-safety
Lorain County Public Health
Summit County Public Health
Kent City Health Department
odh.ohio.gov/find-local-health-districts/city-of-kent-health-department
Portage County Combined General Health District
999 East Main Street, Ravenna, OH 44266
Lake County General Health District
5966 Heisley Road, Mentor, OH
440-350-2543
Medina County Health Department
330-723-9688
medinahealth.org/business-environment/inspections-permits/food-safety-2
This place does not use its county’s default agency. Some municipalities run their own health department and some are served by a neighboring county’s — Cleveland and Kent license their own, and a few places sit outside the county they post mail from. It is normal, and it is also the most common way a plan set reaches the wrong desk. Confirm by phone before you file anything.
Your license
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You have not set a risk level, so the fee and inspection count are blank. It is the number that drives both, and it takes about a minute to establish — work it out.
What you have to do, and when
Filtered to your answers. Everything the site knows that does not apply to you has been left out — which is the point, and also the risk: if you answered a question wrong, something real is missing from this list.
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Every year, by March 1
Renew your food license
Renewal applications are due to your licensor not later than March 1. File late and the licensor assesses a penalty of twenty-five percent of the renewal fee before renewing. Mobile and seasonal operations renew before commencing operation in a new licensing period instead.
Read the guide Ohio Revised Code 3717.43 — license expiration and renewal, applications due not later than March 1, and the twenty-five percent late penalty
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Every year, February 1 to March 1
The Cleveland renewal window opens
Inside the city, renewal applications open February 1 and close March 1. That is a four-week window once a year, and a notice reaching you is not the mechanism you want to rely on.
Read the guide Cleveland Department of Public Health — Food Safety Program: the renewal window opening February 1 and closing March 1
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Every year, expiring March 1
Outdoor Restaurant License expires
Cleveland licenses a patio separately, and it expires March 1 regardless of when it was issued. If any part of the patio touches public right-of-way there is a second permit from the Division of Engineering and Construction on top.
Read the guide Cleveland Division of Assessments and Licenses — Outdoor Restaurant License expiring March 1, Mobile Food Shop Location Permit expiring April 15
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Every year, expiring April 15
Cleveland Mobile Food Shop Location Permit expires
One permit per vending device, expiring April 15 regardless of when it was issued, through the Division of Assessments and Licenses. This is separate from your health license.
Read the guide Cleveland Division of Assessments and Licenses — Outdoor Restaurant License expiring March 1, Mobile Food Shop Location Permit expiring April 15
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Every year
Sample your private water system
A private water system serving the operation has to be sampled, tested and found to meet the drinking water requirements, and the most recent sample report kept on file. On a well this is a dated obligation with your name on it rather than the water utility’s.
Read the guide Ohio Administrative Code 3717-1-05 — water, including the sampling required of a private water system
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Every year, by August 31
File your BWC payroll true-up and pay it
For a private employer the policy year begins July 1, the true-up period opens the same day, and the report and payment are due August 31 — and the bureau states plainly that there is no grace period. Estimated premium is reconciled against the payroll you actually ran.
Read the guide Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation — important dates for employers: for private employers the policy year begins July 1, the payroll true-up period opens July 1, and the true-up report and payment deadline is August 31 with no grace period
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At least twice a year
Sample the bulk water machine for coliform
Water dispensed from a bulk water machine is to be sampled at least semi-annually for coliform bacteria, and the results retained at the operation for the licensor to review. The record is the part that gets written up, because it is a document rather than a condition.
Read the guide Ohio Administrative Code 3717-1-08.3 — bulk water machines sampled at least semi-annually for coliform, results retained for the licensor
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On a cycle set by how much you cook
Have the hood, duct and fan cleaned
The interval comes from the fire code and NFPA 96 rather than the food code, and it scales with cooking volume — solid fuel and high-volume operations are on the shortest cycles. This is a different job from washing your baffle filters, which is yours and is nightly or weekly.
Read the guide Ohio Administrative Code 1301:7-7-09 — Ohio's fire code, requiring commercial cooking fire-extinguishing systems to be inspected and maintained in accordance with NFPA 96
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Every 14 days for beer, 30 for wine
Clean the dispensing lines, and record it
Liquor Control sets this one, not your health district, and the record card is the part operations fail on. Beer lines every fourteen days; wine every thirty.
Read the guide Ohio Administrative Code 4301:1-1-28 — cleaning and sterilizing dispensing apparatus: beer lines every fourteen days, wine every thirty
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Kept 90 days per container
File your shellstock tags
The tag stays attached until the container is empty or retagged, and then goes on file for ninety days. The rule went to the trouble of printing that instruction on the tag itself, and it is still the most commonly missing record in an operation that serves oysters.
Read the guide Ohio Administrative Code 3717-1-03.1 — shellstock tags kept on file for ninety days after the container is empty
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Whenever a device is installed, serviced or unsealed
Call weights and measures
Any device used to sell by weight must be inspected and sealed before it is used with customers, and you must call whenever one is installed, repaired or replaced, brought back into service, or found with a broken or missing seal. In Cuyahoga County give 48 hours notice before scheduled service; the service report is due within 7 days after. Inspections are free.
Read the guide Cuyahoga County Department of Consumer Affairs — devices used to sell by weight must be inspected before use; contact them on install, repair, replacement, return to service or a broken seal
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Throughout every day, at least every 4 hours
Clean food-contact surfaces and utensils
The one interval Ohio actually specifies, and it is stricter than most kitchens assume. Working in a refrigerated room is one of the conditions that lets you go longer, but only if you are preparing food in that room and you document the frequency you are using.
Read the guide Ohio Administrative Code 3717-1-04.5 — food-contact surfaces used with time/temperature controlled food cleaned throughout the day at least every four hours
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Kept 3 years past the last day worked
Keep wage and hour records
Name, address, occupation, pay rate, hours worked each day and each amount paid, for not less than three years after the last date an employee worked for you. The obligation outlives the employment, and it outlives the business.
Read the guide Ohio Constitution Article II Section 34a — wage and hour records kept for not less than three years after an employee’s last date of work
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Assessed each year on the prior year
Check whether you are an applicable large employer
At an average of fifty full-time employees including full-time equivalents in the preceding calendar year, the employer shared responsibility provisions apply. The count includes equivalents, which is how operations with a lot of part-time staff cross it without noticing.
Read the guide Internal Revenue Service — an applicable large employer averages at least fifty full-time employees, including full-time equivalents, in the preceding calendar year
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60 days before a qualifying closing or layoff
WARN Act notice may apply to you
The threshold is 100 or more employees excluding part-time ones, and a part-time employee is anyone averaging under twenty hours a week or who has worked fewer than six of the last twelve months. At your size this is worth confirming with an employment lawyer before any announcement, because the notice period cannot be recovered afterwards.
Read the guide 29 U.S.C. 2101 — the WARN Act reaches employers of 100 or more employees, excluding part-time employees
Worth your time
The guides that apply to what you just described, rather than all fifty-three of them.
- Getting and keeping the license The process, the fees, and the order the inspections happen in Which agency licenses your address and why that follows your municipality rather than your county. What plan review costs and how long it takes — thirty days from a complete submission, three business days if you pay to expedite. How risk level drives the fee. And the sequence that catches people: fire and building inspections come before the health department’s pre-licensing visit, and getting that order backwards costs a full cycle.
- What an inspector looks at The walk, item by item, with the rule behind each one Grouped the way you would walk the kitchen rather than the way the code is numbered. Every line says which rule it rests on, and the items that cannot be fixed on the day — equipment that has to be pulled down to temperature, training that has to already be done, records that have to already exist — are flagged separately so you walk the list a week out rather than the night before.
- Cooking, cooling and holding The numbers everything else rests on Cook temperatures by product, the two-stage cooling rule and why the first stage is the one that fails, hot and cold holding, reheating, and the time-as-a-control route with what it costs you in paperwork. If you learn one page on this site by heart, it is this one, because every other requirement is downstream of getting these right.
- Employee illness reporting The agreement every food employee signs, and when to send someone home The listed symptoms and diagnoses, the difference between excluding and restricting a person, and the written reporting agreement each food employee is supposed to have signed before they start. Also the duty that runs the other way: you must notify your licensor when an employee is diagnosed with a listed pathogen, whether or not anybody has complained.
- Warewashing and hot water Machine temperatures, sanitizer strengths, and what happens to clean items after High-temp versus low-temp and the decision to make before you buy, the three-compartment sink procedure, chemical sanitizer minimums with the chlorine sliding scale that runs the opposite way to intuition, and sizing hot water so the machine and the handsinks do not compete. Plus the rule nobody reads: air-dry rather than towel-dry, six inches off the floor, and preset tableware covered, inverted, or cleared as guests sit.
- Certification Which credential you need, and who has to hold it Ohio has two, not one. Person in charge certification has no exam and applies almost everywhere; manager certification is a longer course plus a proctored exam and is required at risk levels III and IV. The trap for anyone with more than one address: the designated manager-certified person must work exclusively for that facility, so a second location needs a second certified manager.
- If an inspection goes badly The two enforcement tracks, and the hearing you can demand What a critical violation actually triggers, the difference between the ordinary notice-and-correct route and immediate suspension where something presents an immediate danger to the public health, and the hearing you can demand within two business days of a suspension. Worth reading before you need it, because the two-day clock is short and it starts without asking you.
- If someone reports getting sick What your licensor may inspect and demand, and the first hour A complaint entitles your licensor to inspect, and on request to examine your records of the purchase, receipt and use of food, supplies and equipment. That list is what an investigation is made of. Also the counterintuitive instruction: do not empty the walk-in before you ask, because food that may be evidence is the only physical record of what was actually served.
- Draft lines and bar glassware The fourteen-day interval, and the record card people fail on Liquor Control sets this one rather than your health district, which is why it goes unnoticed until it does not. Fourteen days for beer and thirty for wine, what actually accumulates in a line, the yield you lose to a dirty one, and the record card that turns a maintenance habit into something provable. Bar glassware is also held to a different standard from your kitchen sink.
- Selling by weight A second inspector, and a used scale that may be unusable If a customer pays by the pound, weights and measures has jurisdiction over your counter — a different agency from your health district, free inspections, and mostly unannounced. Only NTEP-approved scales can be sealed, so a second-hand or online scale may be unusable at any price. Plus the tare rule that names deli and salad bar containers, and the refund you owe when a scanner rings up above the posted price.
- Water Approved source, sampling, and what treatment actually fixes What the code requires versus what a filtration salesman will tell you it requires — Ohio mandates an approved source and sufficient capacity, not filtration. The annual obligation that lands on you rather than a utility if you are on a well. The carbonator backflow rule most bars miss. And, if you run a bulk water machine, the semi-annual coliform sample whose results have to be on site.
- Approved source and storage Where food may come from, and the ninety-day tag file The four rules underneath everything else: what a lawful source is, why nothing prepared in a private home may be served, how food must be separated once it arrives, and the moment it stops being food and becomes waste. Includes the shellstock tag rule — attached until the container is empty, then filed ninety days — which is the single most commonly missing record in an operation that serves oysters.
- Hoods and grandfathering What triggers a replacement, and what does not carry over Grandfathering is narrower than the word suggests, and the events that end it are the ones you are most likely to be planning: a change of ownership, a menu that changes what you cook, or work that counts as an extensive alteration. Read it before you price a build-out around the hood that is already there.
- Cleaning intervals Who sets each one — four authorities, and only two ever inspect you Ohio’s food code is deliberately non-prescriptive about maintenance, which means the schedule is yours to set and yours to defend. The one interval it does specify is every four hours. Everything else comes from the fire code, Liquor Control, or your equipment manufacturer. Also the chemicals rule: only what the operation needs may be on the premises, and routine pesticide application by an unlicensed person is not permitted.
- Running a mobile unit Four approvals from three agencies, and the water tank rule The approvals do not talk to each other and they renew on different dates. Which of the seven unit types you are decides what infrastructure you must carry. The three things a mobile does not need are worth knowing before somebody sells you one. And the water tank has a rule of its own — NSF 61 materials, a dedicated inlet, and a flush-and-disinfect after any period of nonuse, which includes a Cleveland winter.
- Temporary events What a temporary has to carry, and the exemptions that apply Licensed and charged by the day rather than by risk level, inspected at least once during the period of operation. Covers what the stand itself must have, how the five-consecutive-day limit works, and the narrow exemptions for nonprofit and fundraising operations that are worth checking before you pay for a license you did not need.
- What has to be on the wall The postings, and which ones have a headcount threshold Federal and Ohio notices, where they have to be, and which ones only bite above a certain number of employees. Most of these are free from the agency that requires them, which is worth knowing before you buy an all-in-one poster from a company whose business model is the annual reprint.
- Wages, overtime and tips The tip credit, and the records you keep for three years Ohio’s minimum wage and how it moves with the consumer price index, the tipped rate and what the tip credit requires you to do to claim it, tip pooling, overtime, and the records — name, address, occupation, pay rate, hours by day, amounts paid — kept not less than three years after someone’s last day. Those records are the whole case if a claim ever arrives.
- Workers’ compensation Coverage, the true-up, and what a lapse actually costs Coverage is mandatory from the first employee, and lapsed coverage is not a paperwork problem — it removes the protection that stops an injury becoming a lawsuit against you personally. Covers who counts as an employee, how premium is set, and the annual payroll true-up that reconciles the estimate against what you actually ran.
- Health insurance The fifty-employee threshold, and how equivalents are counted The employer shared responsibility provisions apply at an average of fifty full-time employees including full-time equivalents. The equivalents are the point: an operation running a lot of part-time shifts can cross the line without anyone noticing, and the penalty calculation has a thirty-employee reduction in it that is routinely left out of summaries.
- When someone gets hurt The first hour, and the food that has to be discarded A cut, a burn, a fall — whether it is a guest, an employee, a vendor or a contractor changes who pays and who you call, and the answers are not intuitive. Also the hardest call in the moment and the one people get wrong: food that blood or another bodily fluid reached is contaminated, and contaminated food is discarded rather than rinsed, judged, or quietly moved to staff meal.
- Patios The license, and the second permit nobody mentions Cleveland licenses a patio separately and it expires March 1 regardless of when it was issued. If any part of the seating touches public right-of-way there is a second permit from a different division on top, with its own fee and its own timeline. Both are cheap; discovering the second one late is not.
- Closing or selling up The fifteen-day return, and how to actually end liability Locking the door ends the trading, not the business. The final sales tax return is due within fifteen days of stopping. A liquor permit in safekeeping gets one renewal. And the claims-notice procedure — ninety days for known claims, a two-year bar on published notice — is the step that actually closes your exposure, which almost nobody uses because almost nobody knows it exists.
This is assembled from your answers, not from your file. It is a reference, not a determination and not legal advice. Your licensor decides your risk level and what it inspects; fees are the 2026 published schedules and change; an obligation that is missing here because of an answer above is still an obligation. Confirm anything that costs money with the agency that licenses your address.