Sioux Falls
South Dakota

Findings

What does the city inspect, and how often?

Asked August 25, 2026 Figures as of October 18, 2026

1,180 places holding 1,392 inspected units, on a cycle of about 5.6 months — that is the median gap between the two Inspections the city publishes per unit. Restaurants at 5.8 months and grocery at 5.7 months sit near it; Mobile food stands (2.8 months) is re-inspected sooner. Scores are high and narrow: 52% of scored units scored 100 on their newest Inspection and the lowest newest score is 80. The critical flag falls on 11% of Inspections overall, 17% at restaurants and 5% at grocery. The flag follows the category, not the visit: of the 42 categories in the record, 14 are always marked critical and 28 never are, with none mixed; the single most-cited category, floors walls ceilings, is never critical.

By the city's Site type

The twelve most common types. Gap is the median days between a unit's two published Inspections; score is the median newest score; critical is the share of Inspections with at least one critical Violation.

Site typeSitesUnitsGapScoreCritical
Restaurant 270 300 177 d 98 17%
Food Facility 240 276 156 d 99 18%
Grocery/Food Selling 133 162 173 d 100 5%
Convenience Store 78 144 168 d 100 6%
School 56 56 175 d 100 1%
Fast Food Restaurant 51 51 173 d 98 7%
Casino 45 48 158.5 d 100 1%
Bar 43 47 173 d 100 10%
Coffee Shop 37 38 180 d 99.5 7%
Mobile Food Stand 34 35 86 d 100 14%
Bakery 31 32 176 d 100 2%
Hotel/Lodging 31 42 196 d 100 8%

By Program

ProgramUnitsInspectionsOther visitsRows citedCritical
Food Service 1,039 1,805 130 3,123 415
Food Processing 353 646 11 479 28

Newest score per unit

100 707
95–99 520
90–94 107
85–89 24
80–84 11
70–79 0
below 70 0

What gets cited

The twelve Violation categories the record holds most, as the city writes them, and how many of each carry the critical flag.

CategoryCitedCritical
FLOORS WALLS CEILINGS 674 —
Comment 3 - Overall good 441 —
NON FOOD CONTACT SURFACES - CLEAN 275 —
NON FOOD CONTACT SURFACES - DESIGN 229 —
FOOD CONTACT SURFACES - CLEAN 196 —
Comment 5 - Inspector General Comment 184 —
CONTAMINATION DURING STORAGE 154 —
HANDWASHING LAVATORIES AND SUPPLIES 133 133
CONTAMINATION FROM WIPING CLOTHS 122 —
IN-USE UTENSILS 101 —
PREMISES 95 —
TOILET FACILITIES 91 —

Method

Counted: every Food site on the city's Restaurant Sites and Grocery Sites layers, 1,180 of them (68 Unmapped), their 1,392 Licenses, and the 2,451 scored Inspections those carry — the city publishes at most two per License, so this is a window on the cycle, not the cycle. The gap is measured only on the 1,082 Licenses with two published Inspections. Unscored Visits (re-checks and confirmations, known from the Violations tables) are counted apart and not as Inspections. The city publishes inspections weeks late — the Archive shows a pull carrying inspections dated well before the pull that preceded it — so the newest Inspection here is the newest published, not the newest held, and the gap is measured on a lagging feed.

Not shown: the type table holds 12 of 41 Site types, leaving 131 sites in the rest; the category table holds 12 of 42 categories, leaving 907 of 3,602 cited rows untabled. 23 Licenses carry no scored Inspection and are absent from the score bands. Excluded before counting: 32 Violation rows the city published twice, differing only by their row number, are kept once; 0 rows filed under the other Program's Violations table are counted under the Program whose sites layer lists their License. The lowest newest score is 80; the lowest score anywhere in the two-Inspection window is 76. Types tied on site count are ordered by name.

Scores, types, categories, and the critical flag are the city's own, verbatim; nothing is re-graded. "Comment" rows in the categories are the inspector's general remarks and are counted as rows cited, as the city files them. No site appears here by name, and the type table is not a ranking of kinds of business: the gap and the critical share describe the inspection program's attention, not the places.

Sources