Cooked?How Las Vegas restaurant health grades work
Las Vegas restaurant health grades explained in plain English: the official scale, what each result means, and how Cooked maps it to clean, mid or cooked.
The short version
clean, mid, and cooked map to SNHD’s A, B, and C grades (closures read cooked).
| Official result | What it means | Cooked comparison |
|---|---|---|
| A | Low demerits | clean |
| B | More demerits | mid |
| C or closure | Serious demerits or a suspended permit | cooked |
How Las Vegas actually grades restaurants
The Southern Nevada Health District grades on demerits, and here more is worse: roughly 0–10 demerits earns an A, 11–20 a B, and 21 or more a C. Serious problems can skip the ladder entirely — an imminent health hazard gets the permit suspended and the kitchen shut on the spot, which shows up as a closure rather than a letter. SNHD covers all of Clark County, so Henderson, North Las Vegas and the unincorporated Strip all run the same scheme. Cooked reads A as clean, B as mid, C or a closure as cooked.
What the public record can tell you
Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) also publishes itemized findings, so Cooked can show the issues recorded on a particular inspection. The dated result is useful evidence about what an inspector observed, but it is not a promise about every meal served before or after that visit. Ratings can also reach the public days or weeks after the inspection itself, so Cooked displays the authority’s inspection date rather than pretending the record arrived in real time.
Why Cooked adds a traffic light
The clean, mid and cooked labels are a comparison layer, not replacement grades. The official grade remains visible everywhere. That makes it possible to compare cities without suggesting that unlike systems are identical—and keeps pending, unrated and unavailable information separate from a failing result.
Corrections and updates
Published August 8, 2026. No corrections recorded.