Yelp Versus Inspection Reports: Is Quality Correlated With Sanitation in Retail Food Facilities?

Consumer-generated restaurant review sites offer a wealth of information about dining options. These sites are based on consumers' experiences; therefore, it is useful to assess the relevance between restaurant review (for food quality) and retail food facilities (RFFs) inspection results (for sanitation) from health departments. This study analyzed New York City restaurant ratings on Yelp.com to determine if there was a relationship to RFFs' violation scores for those same facilities found on the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene web pages. In addition, we assessed differences between RFFs defined on Yelp as quick service versus full service, and chains versus nonchains. Yelp ratings were found to be correlated only with sanitation in chain RFFs.