- Free Version: Available for teams of up to 10
- Pricing: Premium plan $24/month (with free 30-day trial period)
- Platforms supported: Available on mobile app (iOS and Android) or a web-based software
Why Use SafetyCulture?
SafetyCulture is a versatile restaurant inspection app that can help maximize a restaurant’s potential with custom smart forms, pre-made inspection templates, powerful data analytics, and fast reporting.
The SafetyCulture restaurant inspection mobile app can convert existing paper checklists to digital format via smart scan. You can also opt to download ready-to-use food safety, kitchen Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), restaurant cleanliness, and similar templates from our Public Library to jump right into conducting digital inspections. With SafetyCulture, anyone can easily create and customize their own inspection templates to suit their business needs using a simple, drag-and-drop template builder.
Additionally, with SafetyCulture, one can eliminate paper storage and organization issues with unlimited cloud storage, so they never have to worry about losing their data again. Manually compiling data from a bunch of paper forms is time-consuming and prone to error, and having to make sense of the collected data requires even more work.
Through SafetyCulture’s web app, one can access the powerful Analytics feature, which gives them quick, detailed insights into their restaurant’s performance. With the use of data filters, one can pinpoint information by time, location, department, employees, templates, and more in just a few seconds. SafetyCulture helps anyone and everyone identify issues quickly so they can address them immediately and is best for all kinds of restaurants and their staff.
Features:
- Perform inspections offline and sync back to the cloud once an internet connection is available
- Use and create QR Codes to motivate employees to scan faster and on the go, without opening the app
- Standardize your inspection process, identify failed areas, assign corrective actions, and send detailed reports to the appropriate personnel
- Use Issues to report problems; Actions for assigning corrective tasks to specific staff; and Heads Up to inform the team or restaurant about certain issues or announcements
- Assign and schedule routine and ad hoc inspections to staff to make sure no essential assessments are missed
- Train staff on proper restaurant safety operations and compliance
- Integrate SafetyCulture with other Business Intelligence tools such as Tableau, Power BI, and Google Sheets
- Download digital reports immediately after completing an inspection in different formats, including PDF, Word, CSV, and XML
Why Use GoSpotCheck?
For spot checking, GoSpotCheck is a restaurant inspection app and mobile task manager for teams all in one. Inspectors and managers can use GoSpotCheck for inspecting a bar or restaurant’s specific processes, assets, training programs, and safety procedures. This app is best for spot-checking specific aspects of a restaurant.
Features:
- Build a restaurant’s brand with new menu rollouts, signs, and more from the app itself
- In-app new hire onboarding
- Allergen notices and general food safety features built-in
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: Dependent on the organization’s needs
- Platforms supported: Web, iOS, and Android
Why Use HDScores?
HDScores is a restaurant inspection app consumers use to help them look for a place to eat. This restaurant inspection app puts the consumer in the position of an inspector as HDScores provides a food establishment’s current and previous public health department ratings, giving consumers a look into their compliance with local health department’s sanitation, safety, and hygiene regulations before they make a decision on where to eat.
Features:
- Allows consumers to view violations, if any
- Use emojis as indicators of health department ratings
- View food establishments with a map view so consumers can see what’s near them
- Works across many US states
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: $1.99 per month or $11.99 per year
- Platforms supported: iOS devices
Why Use Leafe?
For inspecting hygiene-related concerns in a restaurant, consider using Leafe. Leafe is an app focused on promoting hygienic practices and improving sanitation practices in the kitchen. As a restaurant inspection app, inspectors and general managers can use Leafe to ensure all waste disposal procedures are practiced well and all hygiene standards are met from the production of meals all the way to client consumption.
Features:
- Manage and control temperatures of food and refrigerators
- Comply with HACCP and local government regulations with in-app guides
- Enlist professional help from Leafe for implementing food safety and hygiene practices
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: Paid plans start at £31/venue per month (with a 7-day trial period)
Why Use FoodCode-Pro?
Food safety inspectors and general safety inspectors can use FoodCode-Pro for inspecting restaurants and other food establishments. This restaurant inspection app helps with sorting issues with US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) compliance, hygiene, and sanitation in retail food businesses based on the FDA food code and US state-specific supplements. This app is best used to stay compliant with FDA regulations.
Features:
- Internal database on FDA food code that updates automatically when changes to the food code are made
- On-demand professional food safety consultants to help clients with their inspections
- Customizable checklists to fit different settings such as hospitals and schools
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: Dependent on the organization’s needs
- Platforms supported: Web, iOS, and Android
Why Use Silverware?
Silverware is a hospitality management app with a special focus on being a restaurant inspection app. Chefs, managers, and safety professionals can use Silverware to help inspect food inventories, waste management procedures, customer service, and payments. This restaurant inspection app also works as a Point of Sale (POS) system for bars and is best for large-scale restaurants, bars, and in-hotel food establishments.
Features:
- Set multiple variations of pricing for different events in the same venue
- Schedule changes in pricing, revenue calculations, inspections, and more
- Manage staff permissions to multiple devices and locations from one app
- Allow guests to reserve tables or rooms online
- Free Version: Not available
- Pricing: $69/license per month
- Platforms supported: Web, iOS, and Android
What is a Restaurant Inspection App?
A restaurant inspection app is a digital tool for mobile devices and web-based devices used by restaurant managers to ensure that their restaurant’s food protection, safety, hygiene, and quality are up to standard. It is also used to determine if the restaurant’s cleanliness and aesthetics comply with legal and organizational standards.
Benefits of Using a Restaurant Inspection App
A restaurant inspection app is a software that helps restaurant managers ensure food safety, hygiene, and restaurant cleanliness through scheduled and routine checkups.
Regardless of size or scale, restaurants can benefit from using a restaurant inspection app. Due to the dynamic nature of running a restaurant, managers and workers need something portable to assist them when performing routine tasks such as equipment handling, proper site cleaning, and even simple ones like hand washing and wearing appropriate attire. A good restaurant mobile app can provide this much-needed support.
A restaurant app can help with the following:
Ensuring Food Safety and Quality
A restaurant inspection app must help, first and foremost, with ensuring food safety and quality, as well as preventing food-borne illnesses in the foodservice industry. The best way this can be done is with checklists. Having a restaurant inspection app with numerous templates and checklists designed to help restaurant managers and staff better ensure that food, drink, and other items are safe from contamination and up to quality standards. It is also ideal if users have the option to create and customize their own templates to fit their needs and preferences and even perform inspections offline.
Some most common uses for restaurant inspection checklists are as follows:
Analyzing Data Through Analytics
After completing an inspection, the data should be uploaded to the cloud. By having these completed checklists online, anyone in an organization can view the data collated, giving them a comprehensive report of their restaurant’s performance and telling them where they’re excelling and what needs fixing.
Enforcing SOPs and Ensuring They are Followed
Every successful restaurant adheres to effective standard operating procedures. It would be best if the restaurant inspection app offers customizable SOP templates so that managers can modify them according to their restaurant’s policy. They should also be able to use the app to schedule routine checks and inspections for their personnel through the restaurant inspection app.
Through this, staff will be notified when inspections and checks are assigned to them, and restaurant managers will be alerted when scheduled inspections are missed. This feature helps encourage compliance with SOPs such as cleaning, restaurant opening, food preparation, and other aspects of the operation to ensure that you maximize your restaurant’s potential.
Try the following restaurant management and operation SOP checklists:
Ensuring Legal Compliance
The government can impose severe fines on, if not outright close, restaurants that don’t comply with food service codes and regulations.
Restaurant managers have to comply with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations to ensure that employees are working in a safe environment. Meanwhile, the entire staff must comply with FDA requirements during health and safety inspections to make sure that the food served is safe, clean, and uncontaminated.
Performing regular inspections with a restaurant inspection app helps ensure that a restaurant consistently complies with legal requirements to avoid fines and closure.
Try the following OSHA and FDA self-inspection checklists:
Ensuring Cleanliness, Acceptable Conditions, and Aesthetics
Restaurant management doesn’t end with ensuring adherence to food safety and cleanliness standards. The cleanliness of a facility, including its structural and aesthetic condition, is paramount to providing a complete and pleasant dining experience for customers.
Try the following restaurant cleanliness and condition assessments:
Top Restaurant Inspection Apps Overview
Here is a comparison table of the seven best restaurant inspection apps out there today:
| Restaurant Inspection App | Best For | Free Version Available? | Pricing |
| SafetyCulture | All kinds of restaurants and their staff | Yes, for teams with ten members or less | $24/user/month* |
| GoSpotCheck | Spot-checking specific aspects of a restaurant | No | Custom pricing |
| HDScores | Consumers conscious of the health ratings of food establishments | No | $1.99/user/month* |
| Leafe | Maintaining good hygiene standards | Yes, for the first 7 days | £31 (~$40.78)/user/month |
| FoodCode-Pro | Staying compliant with FDA regulations | No | Custom pricing |
| Silverware | Large-scale restaurants, bars, and in-hotel food establishments | No | $69/user/month |
* billed annually
Roselin Manawis