NON-FOOD/FOOD CONTACT SURFACES CLEAN.
Cited at 16,726 of 56,625 graded Chicago inspections — 29.5% of them, the 3rd most common violation in the city. Inspections citing it fail 33.4% of the time against a 27.5% baseline, making it a mild signal.
What it means
Violation 49 appears on the Chicago Department of Public Health’s inspection checklist as “Non-food/food Contact Surfaces Clean.” Its position on that form places it in the core 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.
Core violations concern facility maintenance, cleanliness and paperwork. They rarely fail an inspection on their own, and they are by far the most commonly cited.
How much it actually matters
Ranked by how often it is written up, violation 49 is 3rd of 50. Ranked by how strongly it predicts a failure, it is 43rd. It is written up far more than its risk warrants — a common finding, and the reason a long violation list is not by itself alarming.
Other core violations
- Physical Facilities Installed, Maintained & Clean
- Food & Non-food Contact Surfaces Cleanable, Properly Designed, Constructed & Used
- Plumbing Installed; Proper Backflow Devices
- Adequate Ventilation & Lighting; Designated Areas Used
- Allergen Training As Required
- Toilet Facilities: Properly Constructed, Supplied, & Cleaned
Violation 49 FAQ
What is violation 49 in a Chicago health inspection?
Violation 49, "Non-food/food Contact Surfaces Clean", 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 core band. Core violations concern facility maintenance, cleanliness and paperwork. They rarely fail an inspection on their own, and they are by far the most commonly cited.
Is violation 49 serious?
Measured against outcomes, it is a mild signal. Inspections citing violation 49 ended in a failure 33.4% of the time, against a 27.5% baseline across 56,625 graded Chicago inspections — 1.21× ordinary risk. It is worth noting, but it is not on its own a reason to avoid a restaurant.
How common is violation 49?
It is the 3rd most-cited violation in Chicago, appearing at 16,726 of 56,625 graded inspections since 2022 — 29.5% of them.
Can a restaurant fail an inspection for violation 49 alone?
Rarely. Core violations do not normally cause a failure by themselves. When an inspection citing this item fails, something more serious was usually cited at the same visit.
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 49 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.