What’s changed

The “Just looked up” strip and the most-viewed lists were picking up automated visits from programs scanning the site, so they listed places nobody had actually searched for. A restaurant now only counts when a real person has the page open and interacts with it, and appears in the strip only after at least two different people have looked it up.

Popular this week

South Carolina inspections now show up within a day or so of the state posting them, instead of waiting for a weekly update. A reader pointed out that a recent follow-up was missing from a restaurant’s history.

South Carolina

County and state pages now show the date of the newest inspection, not just when we last checked, so you can tell how fresh the grades are.

The home page is now just a search box. Type a restaurant or city and go — no scrolling past lists first. The most looked-up restaurants and the “Just looked up” list moved to their own Popular this week page.

HomePopular this week

Restaurant and city pages now stay ready between data updates instead of being rebuilt every minute, so they open faster. New inspection results still appear as soon as they are published.

A “Just looked up” list on the home page shows restaurants people are checking right now. Times are kept vague and each one appears after a short delay, so nobody’s search can be picked out — and it only shows once enough places have been looked up.

Home

The weekly list of most looked-up restaurants now counts places people checked straight from the search suggestions, not only the ones they opened. Only which restaurant a search found is counted, never what you typed.

We now measure how quickly pages load for real visitors, anonymously, so we can spot slow pages and keep the site fast.

See which restaurants people are looking up most this week, on the home page and on city profiles. Views are counted anonymously — no cookies, nothing tied to you — and a list only appears once enough people have looked.

Home

A Cities menu at the top of every page, and a page listing every city profile, so the profiles are one tap away wherever you are.

All city profiles

Search from any page. The box at the top searches the state you last picked, and you can switch states beside it.

On phones and tablets, a menu at the top now lists every state and city, which the narrow header used to hide. Buttons carry small icons so they’re quicker to spot, and a county’s page, its city profile and its restaurants now link to one another. A search that finds nothing in one state offers the others.

City profiles for Greenville and Charleston: who lives there, what people earn, what housing costs, how they get to work, schooling and health, from the Census Bureau and other public agencies. Every figure shows where it came from and how recent it is, estimates with a wide margin of error are marked, and maps show the numbers neighborhood by neighborhood. Find them under Cities at the top of every page.

GreenvilleCharleston

A page to ask for your state next, or to tell us about a missing county, a missing restaurant or something that looks wrong. It’s linked at the bottom of every page, and if you leave an email we can write back.

North Carolina restaurant grades and scores, from 96 of the state’s 100 counties, alongside South Carolina and Georgia. Each place shows the letter posted at its door, the exact score behind it (half points included), and up to five years of earlier inspections. Buncombe (Asheville), Alexander, Halifax and Swain counties publish separately and aren’t included yet.

Georgia’s weekly refresh stopped before publishing after the service that turns addresses into map pins answered with nothing usable. The refresh now halts as soon as that happens and keeps every existing pin, instead of quietly treating every restaurant as unmappable.

Show places near me. On the home page, one tap lists the 20 closest restaurants with their grades, and picks the right state for you. On a state page, "Near me" sorts results by distance and works with the grade and county filters. Your location stays on your device and is never saved or put in a link.

Share a grade. Every restaurant page has a "Share this grade" button that opens your phone’s share sheet, so you can text a grade to whoever you’re eating with.

We now count a few anonymous actions too, like searches that find nothing and taps on official reports, so we can see where search lets you down. Nothing you type and no location is recorded.

The home page now lists the places most recently graded in each state, with the date of each inspection.

A "Directions" button on every open restaurant’s page opens Apple Maps on iPhone and Mac, and Google Maps everywhere else.

Filter buttons and report links are bigger on phones and easier to tap. Adding Clean Plate to your home screen now gives it a sharp icon.

We now count page visits anonymously — no cookies, nothing tied to you — so we can see which states and pages readers use most and focus updates there.

This page. Every update to the site is now listed here, so you can see what was fixed after you report a problem.

Grades now show the most recent graded inspection, follow-ups included. A place that got a B and then earned an A on a follow-up visit showed the old B; it now shows the A, with the B still listed in its history. Thanks to the reader who reported it.

In Georgia, 182 places that had fixed a failing score on a follow-up visit no longer show the failing score.

Georgia restaurant inspection scores and grades, alongside South Carolina.

Search finds places when the spelling differs slightly, and when you type a name and a town together.

Search for a restaurant by name right from the home page.

Search within a county’s listing.

Clean Plate launched with South Carolina restaurant health grades from public records.