• resultFail
• critical violations1
• last inspectedOctober 5, 2018 →
• address554 Columbia Rd, Dorchester 02125

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Is Handy's Cafe clean?

Handy's Cafe is currently Fail from Boston Inspectional Services, Health Division, from an inspection on October 5, 2018. 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 Handy's Cafe?

These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on October 5, 2018, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.

• ⚠️Food Protection
• ⚠️Dishwashng Facilities
• ⚠️Non-Food Contact Surfaces Clean
• ⚠️Installed and Maintained
• ⚠️Insects Rodents Animals
• ⚠️Improper Maintenance of Floors
• 🧹premises not properly maintained or cleaned
  Improper Maintenance of Walls/Ceilings
• ⚠️Premises Maintained
• ⚠️PIC Performing Dutiescritical

Handy's Cafe inspection and administrative history

Handy's Cafe has 11 inspections on record going back to May 26, 2017.

Graded visits shown below · newest first · tap a date for the record

History worth a look: 2 of these 7 displayed graded visits read cooked. The current result above stands on its own.

Handy's Cafe vs Roxbury

Roxbury runs 83% clean across 693 tracked restaurants — 549 clean, 63 mid, 48 cooked.

Against the 693 spots Cooked tracks in Roxbury, this one comes out cleaner than 2% of them.

Other spots in Roxbury

• ✓ Wild Pops
  clean · October 23, 2025
• ✓ Calderon Market 3
  clean · May 29, 2012
• ✓ Monumental Meat Market
  clean · February 14, 2023
• ✓ Wingz And Tingz
  clean · January 20, 2023
• ✓ Andrade Market
  clean · June 14, 2010
• ✓ Fort Hill Bar & Grill
  clean · July 24, 2026

See every restaurant inspection in Roxbury →

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 October 5, 2018. 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.