An unannounced inspector can walk into your restaurant any day. This guide covers exactly what they check, what causes closures, and what to do if you fail — written for Edmonton restaurant owners.
An Alberta Health Services inspector can walk into your restaurant any day, without notice. They have full authority under the Public Health Act to assess your operation, document every violation they find, and post those findings publicly online — where they stay for three years.
Most restaurant owners don't fail because they're running a dirty kitchen. They fail because they didn't know the specific rules, the exact temperature numbers, or the particular things an inspector checks in the corners you haven't thought about in months.
This guide covers all of it — what they check, what shuts you down, and what to do if you fail.
By The Numbers
The exact figures every Edmonton restaurant owner must know
Inspection Reports Stay Publicly Visible
Posted on the AHS portal within 1–5 business days
Maximum Cold Holding Temperature
All refrigerated food must stay at or below this
Minimum Hot Holding Temperature
All hot food must stay at or above this during service
Minimum Poultry Cooking Temperature
Required internal temp for chicken, turkey, and duck
All restaurant inspections in Edmonton are conducted by Alberta Health Services (AHS) Environmental Public Health — not the City of Edmonton, not a federal agency.
Inspectors operate under the Alberta Public Health Act and enforce two key documents:
- Alberta Food Regulation (Alta Reg 31/2006)
- Food Retail and Foodservices Code (last amended 2020)
Everything they check traces back to one of these two documents. They are not there to shut you down — their mandate is public safety and compliance. But they have full legal authority to close you immediately if they find conditions that pose a direct health risk.
There are four types. Only one of them gives you any notice:
- Routine / Monitoring — Unannounced. Happens roughly once per year for most restaurants. This is the standard inspection.
- Re-inspection — Triggered after violations are found. Comes to verify you fixed them.
- Initial / Approval — Before you open, or when ownership changes. The only one that's coordinated in advance.
- Complaint / Demand — Triggered by a public complaint. No schedule. Can happen any day.
Restaurants with a clean history get inspected roughly once a year. Restaurants with repeated violations get inspected more often — AHS adjusts frequency based on risk.
The only way to be ready for an unannounced inspection is to always be ready.
Inspectors follow a structured checklist across eight categories every time. Use this as your complete reference.
This is where inspectors spend the most time. Foodborne illness almost always traces back to a temperature failure.
- Cold holding: all refrigerated food must be at 4°C or below at all times
- Hot holding: all hot food must stay at 60°C or above during service
- Poultry must reach a minimum internal cooking temperature of 74°C
- Cooling: hot food must drop from 60°C to 20°C within 2 hours, then reach 4°C within 4 more hours
- Thawing: only three methods are legal — in the refrigerator, under cold running water, or in a microwave if cooking immediately after
- Thermometers must be present, calibrated, and accurate
- Raw meat must always be stored below ready-to-eat food — raw chicken goes on the bottom shelf, always
- All food must be stored at least 15 cm (6 inches) off the floor
- Containers must be covered and labeled with use-by dates
- First In, First Out (FIFO): older stock is used before newer stock
- No food stored near chemicals, cleaners, or janitorial supplies
- All food must come from approved, licensed suppliers
- Handwashing: minimum 20 seconds with soap and water — required after handling raw meat, using the washroom, taking out garbage, touching your face, handling money, or returning from a break
- Handwashing stations must be in every food prep area, accessible at all times, stocked with soap and paper towels
- Disposable gloves required for ready-to-eat food — changed when switching tasks
- Hair coverings (hats or hairnets) required
- Any employee showing symptoms — vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice — must not handle food
- Separate cutting boards for raw meat and produce — colour coding is best practice
- Raw meat and ready-to-eat food must never share prep surfaces without full sanitation between uses
- Hands and gloves must be changed when switching between raw and cooked product
- Utensils must be washed, rinsed, and sanitized between uses on different food types
- All food contact surfaces require three steps in order: wash → rinse → sanitize
- Sanitizer must be at the correct concentration — inspectors test it with chemical test strips on the spot
- Cleaning chemicals must be stored separately from food, in labelled containers
- Mop sinks and janitorial supplies must be completely separated from food handling areas
- Floors, walls, and ceilings must be smooth, durable, and easy to clean
- Lighting must be adequate in all food prep areas — burned-out bulbs are a citable violation
- Your exhaust hood system must be functional and maintained — a grease-saturated hood or clogged filters is a direct violation and signals a fire risk to any inspector who sees it. Professional kitchen exhaust cleaning keeps your system within NFPA 96 requirements and gives you a valid service certificate to show on demand.
- Hot water must be available at all sinks
- Equipment must be in good working order — cracked, corroded, or damaged surfaces that trap bacteria are a violation
- Zero tolerance: no droppings, live insects, rodent tracks, or nesting material anywhere in the facility
- Inspectors check behind and under equipment, under sinks, and around pipe penetrations
- Garbage must be in covered containers and removed regularly
- Any pesticide use must be documented and approved for commercial food premises — consumer-grade bug spray is not acceptable
- At least one certified food handler must be on-site when 6 or more food handlers are working at the same time
- Your food establishment permit must be current, issued by AHS, and posted visibly
- Required signage must be posted: no-smoking, handwashing reminder, food establishment permit, allergy information
- Inspectors may ask to see cleaning logs, temperature monitoring records, or your food safety plan
The Two Temperatures Every Alberta Restaurant Must Know
Cold holding — 4°C or below. Hot holding — 60°C or above. Food sitting between these two temperatures is in the danger zone where bacteria multiply rapidly. Inspectors check this first, every single time.
Not all violations are equal. This distinction determines whether you walk out of an inspection still open for business or handed a closure order on the spot.
Critical violation: A condition that poses a direct, immediate risk to public health. These can trigger immediate closure. No negotiation.
Non-critical violation: A condition that doesn't pose an immediate health risk but violates the code. You can usually stay open while correcting these — but they are still documented and go on your public record.
The rule of thumb: if it can make a customer sick today, it's critical. The table below shows you exactly how the two categories compare.
`Critical Violation`
`Non-Critical Violation`
These appear repeatedly in AHS inspection reports. Know them before an inspector does.
1. Food held at the wrong temperature
Refrigerators running slightly warm, hot-hold units not preheated before service, food left out during prep longer than permitted. Check equipment temperatures at the start of every single shift.
2. Raw meat stored above ready-to-eat food
Raw chicken dripping onto salad greens in the walk-in. One of the fastest routes to a foodborne illness outbreak. Label your shelves. Train everyone who touches the walk-in — not just your main kitchen staff.
3. Inadequate handwashing — facility or practice
Two separate violations. Structural: sinks blocked by equipment, no soap, no paper towels. Behavioral: staff not washing at the right moments. Both are cited regularly and both are preventable.
4. Evidence of pest activity
A single dropping behind the fryer. A mouse track along the wall. Any evidence triggers a critical violation and usually a re-inspection within days. Pest prevention is not a reactive task.
5. Food from unapproved sources
Buying from unlicensed suppliers, accepting unmarked product. Inspectors check invoices and product labels.
6. Improper cleaning and sanitizing
Surfaces wiped but not sanitized. Sanitizer at the wrong concentration. Cutting boards with deep knife scarring that can no longer be properly cleaned.
7. Hood and ventilation not maintained
Grease buildup in the hood system and ductwork is both a fire hazard and a health code violation. Inspectors look for visible grease saturation and ask for your last service certificate. A neglected hood signals that other systems may be neglected too — it sets the tone for the entire inspection.
8. No certified food handler on premises
Catches restaurants off guard when the certified staff member calls in sick. Build redundancy — more than one person on your team should hold certification.
A visually saturated kitchen exhaust fan is a citable violation and tells the inspector everything they need to know about how the kitchen is run. One before/after visit changes that.
Failing an inspection doesn't always mean immediate closure. What happens next depends on what was found — and how you respond. Here is the full escalation ladder, from a first conversation to prosecution.
Inspector explains the violation and what's required to fix it. First-time or minor issues typically end here with a conversation and a follow-up date. Most restaurants never go past this step.
Violation is formally documented and given to the operator in writing. A correction deadline is set. This is now on your record.
Inspector returns to verify corrections were made. If they weren't — or if the violations are serious — enforcement escalates immediately.
AHS issues a written order to close until violations are corrected. This closure becomes public record and is visible on the AHS inspection portal.
Your food establishment permit is suspended or revoked. You cannot legally operate.
Under the Public Health Act, violations can result in prosecution of the owner, manager, and individual employees. Fines can reach tens of thousands of dollars per offence.
Your Inspection Report Is Public — And Stays Online for 3 Years
Every violation AHS documents is posted on the Alberta Health Services public portal within 1 to 5 business days. It stays there for three years. Customers Google restaurants before they book. That report is findable. One bad inspection can follow your restaurant for three years — not because of one bad day, but because it is publicly documented. Consistent compliance is reputation management.
The inspection happened. The violations are documented. Here is the exact order of operations to recover fast, pass the re-inspection, and protect your reputation while you fix the problem.
Understand every violation — what it is, whether it's critical or non-critical, and exactly what it requires. If anything is unclear, call your AHS inspector and ask them to explain it specifically. Do not guess.
Critical violations are your only priority right now. Fix them, document the fix with photos and written notes, and confirm the correction is in place before the next shift opens.
Not just the people on shift the day of the inspection. Every violation that involves staff behavior requires formal retraining. Keep a written record that you did it — date, who attended, what was covered.
For every violation: who is responsible for fixing it, what the fix is, and a clear deadline. This document shows the inspector you took the failure seriously and have a structured response. Bring it to the re-inspection.
Contact AHS once all corrections are complete. The inspector decides the exact timing, but requesting promptly demonstrates good faith. Have your corrective action plan ready to present.
The only restaurants that never worry about inspections are the ones that treat compliance as a daily standard, not a test to pass. See the checklist below.
The most inspection-ready kitchens treat every week like an inspector is coming. The three checklists below take less than 15 minutes a day and cover everything AHS checks. Use them, print them, or bookmark this page and run through them on shift.
Run this before service opens. Takes under 5 minutes.
Pick one consistent day — end of week works well.
Set a recurring calendar reminder. These are the violations that blindside restaurants.
No. Alberta Health Services inspectors have the authority to enter any food establishment at any reasonable time under the Public Health Act. Refusing entry or obstructing an inspector is itself a violation and will escalate enforcement immediately.
Search your restaurant name on the Alberta Health Services public inspection portal at "albertahealthservices.ca". Reports are posted within 1–5 business days of the inspection and remain visible for three years.
No. Routine monitoring inspections are unannounced by design. The only inspection with advance notice is the initial approval inspection before opening.
Repeated violations significantly increase your risk of escalated enforcement — including closure orders and permit action. AHS uses your inspection history to determine both how often you get inspected and how aggressively they respond.
Cleaning frequency is set by NFPA 96 and depends on your cooking type. High-volume frying: quarterly. Standard restaurant cooking: every 6 months. Low-volume or low-heat operations: annually. Your cleaning company must provide a certificate after each service — keep it on file. Inspectors ask for it.
Alberta Food Regulation requires at least one certified food handler on-site when six or more food handlers are working simultaneously. Having only one certified person is a risk — if they call in sick and you have six or more staff on shift, you're in violation. Train multiple people.
The food handling permit belongs to your business — it's your licence to operate, issued by AHS. Food handler certification belongs to individual employees — it's the personal training credential. You need both.
Contact the inspector who performed the inspection first — some violations come from a misunderstanding that can be resolved directly. For formal disputes, AHS has an internal review process. You cannot prevent the violation from being posted publicly while a review is pending.
Your exhaust hood is one of the specific things AHS inspectors check — and one of the most commonly cited violations in Edmonton restaurants. A professional cleaning every 6 months (or quarterly for high-volume frying) keeps you NFPA 96 compliant, gives you a valid certificate to show on demand, and eliminates one more item from your inspection checklist permanently.
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