A recent report sought to find out which areas in Queens had more restaurants that weren’t up to Health Department code.
RentHop recently released an interactive map measuring which neighborhoods had the highest and lowest restaurant grades based on recent inspections. The report also looked at the number of health violations that restaurants throughout the city received from 2016 through 2019, including mice and rodent violations.
According to their findings, Queens’ Lindenwood-Howard Beach area, which has 51 restaurants in total, had zero restaurants grading a B or C from the health department. Queens’ worst neighborhood for B or C grading was Ozone Park, with nine out of 50 restaurants receiving a B or C grade.
The interactive map highlights each Queens area and shows how many restaurants received a B or C grade from the Health Department:
RentHop’s data found that five Queens neighborhoods had the highest amount of violations at neighborhood restaurants between 2017 and 2019:
- Flushing, 1,529 in 2017, 2,695 in 2018 and 2,611 in 2019
- Astoria, 1,263 in 2017, 2,098 in 2018 and 1,830 in 2019
- Hunters Point-Sunnyside-West Maspeth, 1,324 in 2017, 1,880 in 2018 and 1,421 in 2019
- Jackson Heights, 1,136 in 2017, 1,820 in 2018 and 1,555 in 2019
- Elmhurst, 885 in 2017, 1,380 in 2018 and 1,202 in 2019
RentHop’s report also explored the number of mice and rodent violations each borough had over the past four years. According to their findings, while rodent violations increased throughout the borough, Queens saw the highest jump.
In 2016, Queens had 989 total reported mice and rodent violations and 1,841 cases in 2017. The huge increase took place from 2017 to 2018, which had 3,138 reported mice and rodent violations, marking a 70.8 percent increase year-over-year. In 2019, mice and rodent violations in Queens dropped back down to 2,399.
Some of the borough’s top mice offenders included Greenwood Quality Bakery (111-02 Liberty Ave., Jamaica), Nest Restaurant & Bar (125-17 101st Ave., Jamaica), Hong Kong House (23-07 Steinway St., Ditmars-Steinway) and Golden Punjab Indian Restaurant (130-02 101st Ave., Jamaica), with 16, 15, 15 and 15 violations, respectively.
Following the report, a representative from the Health Department told QNS that RentHop had inappropriately compared violations in this report. Restaurants that go out of business have their data removed from the Health Department’s OpenData dataset, making it so fewer violations will appear for previous years when compared to the current year. Not all violations from 2016 are likely to be included in the counts, even for currently active restaurants, according to the department.
To read the full report and use the interactive map, visit https://www.renthop.com/studies/nyc/restaurant-health-code-violations-skyrocket-across-nyc
Updated on Sept. 18 at 3:05 p.m.
