FOOD SEPARATED AND PROTECTED.
Cited at 312 of 56,625 graded Chicago inspections — 0.6% of them, the 44th most common violation in the city. Inspections citing it fail 58.3% of the time against a 27.5% baseline, making it a strong signal.
What it means
Violation 15 appears on the Chicago Department of Public Health’s inspection checklist as “Food Separated and Protected.” Its position on that form places it in the priority band — the city does not publish a severity field, so this is inferred from the code number, which is how the form itself is ordered.
Priority violations address the most direct routes to foodborne illness — temperature control, contamination, sick employees, unsafe sourcing. A single one can fail an inspection on its own.
How much it actually matters
Ranked by how often it is written up, violation 15 is 44th of 50. Ranked by how strongly it predicts a failure, it is 14th. It matters considerably more than its frequency suggests, which makes it easy to overlook on a busy report.
Other priority violations
- Adequate Handwashing Sinks Properly Supplied and Accessible
- City of Chicago Food Service Sanitation Certificate
- Food-contact Surfaces: Cleaned & Sanitized
- Proper Cold Holding Temperatures
- Person in Charge Present, Demonstrates Knowledge, and Performs Duties
- Management, Food Employee and Conditional Employee; Knowledge, Responsibilities and Reporting
Violation 15 FAQ
What is violation 15 in a Chicago health inspection?
Violation 15, "Food Separated and Protected", is one of the numbered items on the Chicago Department of Public Health's inspection checklist. By its position on that form it falls in the priority band. Priority violations address the most direct routes to foodborne illness — temperature control, contamination, sick employees, unsafe sourcing. A single one can fail an inspection on its own.
Is violation 15 serious?
Measured against outcomes, it is a strong signal. Inspections citing violation 15 ended in a failure 58.3% of the time, against a 27.5% baseline across 56,625 graded Chicago inspections — 2.12× ordinary risk. That places it among the strongest predictors of a failed inspection in the whole dataset.
How common is violation 15?
It is the 44th most-cited violation in Chicago, appearing at 312 of 56,625 graded inspections since 2022 — 0.6% of them.
Can a restaurant fail an inspection for violation 15 alone?
Yes. Priority violations address the most direct routes to foodborne illness, and a single one can fail an inspection on its own.
Sources
- City of Chicago — Food Inspections dataset (4ijn-s7e5)Every record referenced on this page.
- Chicago Department of Public Health — Restaurant InspectionHow inspections are conducted and how violations are classified.
How these figures were calculated
The city publishes the records but not these rates. They were derived from 56,625 inspections since 2022 with a graded result of Pass, Pass w/ Conditions or Fail, with each violation string parsed for its leading code number. The rate above is the share of inspections citing violation 15 that ended in a failure. A single inspection commonly cites several violations, so codes are not mutually exclusive. Anyone can reproduce this from the dataset linked above.
Independent service — not affiliated with the City of Chicago, Cook County, or any restaurant. Health inspection data sourced directly from the City of Chicago's public Food Inspections open-data feed (data.cityofchicago.org, dataset 4ijn-s7e5), rebuilt from the live feed on every deploy. Neighborhood is derived from ZIP code and is approximate.