TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Kern County Environmental Health officials are backing up the letter grades they issue to restaurants with some technological muscle, giving diners the power to access detailed inspection reports of food businesses through their mobile phones and other data devices.

County regulators started printing a small, square “QR” code on all of the letter grade cards they post in the front windows of food establishments.

If your phone or data device can take a picture and surf the Internet, downloading a QR code reader application will allow you to use your camera to scan that box of data.

A wide variety of scanning software is available for download for free, or for a small fee.

Right now, said Public Health Department Director Matt Constantine, the code on the posted grade cards sends the person scanning the information to the county’s inspection report page, where they can input the name of the restaurant and pull up the establishment’s inspection history.

Restaurants are already required to keep a paper copy of their most recent inspection report on hand and give it to anyone who asks for it.

“This, we think, just increases the accessibility of the information,” Constantine said.

So far only a few restaurants — Tahoe Joe’s in the Marketplace, a Starbucks on Olive Drive, 24th Street Cafe, among others —  have the codes on their grade cards.

Michele Rowley, who stopped by Bonnie’s Best Cafe in downtown Bakersfield Thursday to pick up a phone order, uses the grade cards all the time and loves the idea of having more access to information.

“I won’t eat at anything less than a B. Sometimes I wonder how some places get an A,” she said.

A quick cell phone search, triggered by the grade card in the window nearby, shows Bonnie’s Best has a 99 point A grade with only a couple “non-critical” problems — a leaking faucet in the food prep area and an improper mop water disposal practice.

“I eat here three times a week,” Rowley said. “They have a garden salad, they put chicken on it, it’s great.”

Rowley said she was actually surprised that the county had come up with such a clever way to use technology to serve the public.

“It’s more technologically advanced than I would expect government in California to be,” she said.
Laurie Watson, the owner of Bonnie’s Best, said she has no problem with the new tool for her customers.

“I think it’s a great thing. The A should tell them enough, but If people want to know what an A entails, they can,” she said. “I’m happy with my A, and if anyone wants to come and scan that, I’m happy with that too.”

Constantine said the idea is definitely targeted to younger people who are used to using mobile devices to interact with the world.

But he said he hopes the codes will actually be used by all diners.

In the future, he said, the county hopes to personalize the codes on each restaurant’s grade card so the person scanning the code will be taken directly to the inspection report.

“When you walk up to the restaurant, you’ll be able to scan the code, pull up the actual inspection report that may have been done yesterday afternoon — pull up the actual report that the inspector themselves wrote,” Constantine said.

You can read restaurant inspection reports online here.