PROPER HOT HOLDING TEMPERATURES.
Cited at 838 of 56,625 graded Chicago inspections — 1.5% of them, the 35th most common violation in the city. Inspections citing it fail 54.1% of the time against a 27.5% baseline, making it a meaningful signal.
What it means
Violation 21 appears on the Chicago Department of Public Health’s inspection checklist as “Proper Hot Holding Temperatures.” 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 21 is 35th of 50. Ranked by how strongly it predicts a failure, it is 18th. 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 21 FAQ
What is violation 21 in a Chicago health inspection?
Violation 21, "Proper Hot Holding Temperatures", 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 21 serious?
Measured against outcomes, it is a meaningful signal. Inspections citing violation 21 ended in a failure 54.1% of the time, against a 27.5% baseline across 56,625 graded Chicago inspections — 1.97× ordinary risk. It is worth noting, but it is not on its own a reason to avoid a restaurant.
How common is violation 21?
It is the 35th most-cited violation in Chicago, appearing at 838 of 56,625 graded inspections since 2022 — 1.5% of them.
Can a restaurant fail an inspection for violation 21 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 21 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.