• resultFail
• critical violations1
• last inspectedDecember 11, 2025 →
• address2 Palace Rd, Boston 02115

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Is Gardner Museum Cafe clean?

Gardner Museum Cafe is currently Fail from Boston Inspectional Services, Health Division, from an inspection on December 11, 2025. Inspectors wrote up 1 critical violation — the kind most directly linked to foodborne illness. On Cooked's ladder that reads cooked 🪳.

What did inspectors find at Gardner Museum Cafe?

These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on December 11, 2025, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.

• ⚠️Clean condition-Hands and Arms (P)critical
• ⚠️Food Storage Containers Identified with Common Name of Food (C)
• ⚠️Wiping Cloths Use Limitation (C)
• ⚠️(A) Equipment Food-Contact Surfaces Nonfood-Contact Surfaces and Utensils (Pf)
• ⚠️Using a Handwashing Sink-Operation and Maintenance (Pf)
• ⚠️Floors Walls and Ceilings-Cleanability (C)
• ⚠️Repairing-Premises Structures Attachments and Fixtures-Methods (C)

Gardner Museum Cafe inspection and administrative history

Gardner Museum Cafe has 42 inspections on record going back to January 5, 2012. The 12 most recent are shown below.

Gardner Museum Cafe vs Longwood

Longwood runs 79% clean across 199 tracked restaurants — 151 clean, 18 mid, 22 cooked.

Against the 199 spots Cooked tracks in Longwood, this one comes out cleaner than 8% of them.

Other spots in Longwood

• ✓ El Pelon Taqueria
  clean · June 12, 2024
• ✓ Emmanuel College Bookstore No. 43
  clean · February 2, 2018
• ✓ Qdoba Mexican Eats No. 2207
  clean · March 17, 2023
• ✕ Sakura Japan
  cooked · May 8, 2026
• ✓ Swish Shabu
  clean · May 11, 2016
• ✓ Rod Dee 2 Thai Cuisine
  clean · November 16, 2018

See every restaurant inspection in Longwood →

How Boston grades restaurants

Boston reports inspections as a pass or a fail, with no score and no letter. What separates a bad fail from a trivial one is the violation severity ladder: a single star is a minor issue, two stars is more serious, and three stars marks a critical foodborne-illness risk factor — temperature abuse, bad handwashing, cross-contamination. A restaurant can fail on paperwork alone, which is not the same as failing on food safety. Cooked splits Boston fails accordingly: a fail with a three-star violation reads cooked, a fail on minor items only reads mid.

Read the Boston ratings guide →

Inspection findings and available history come from the authority’s published records. Cooked checks daily; publication can lag behind an inspection. Read the date on each result and check the official source for newer information.

Source: Boston Inspectional Services, Health Division via Analyze Boston. Cooked refreshes this data daily — this listing's most recent inspection is dated December 11, 2025. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.

check your own block 📸

Cooked covers 10 cities on official inspection data — see who's clean, mid, or cooked near you.