The Purple Shell

• resultPass
• critical violations0
• last inspectedAugust 1, 2024 →
• address11 W Broadway, South Boston 02127

Is The Purple Shell clean?

The Purple Shell is currently Pass from Boston Inspectional Services, Health Division, from an inspection on August 1, 2024. No critical violations were recorded at that visit. On Cooked's ladder that reads clean 😇.

What did inspectors find at The Purple Shell?

No failed findings were recorded. Boston Inspectional Services, Health Division marked 8 code checks as passed on August 1, 2024.

The Purple Shell inspection and administrative history

The Purple Shell has 25 inspections on record going back to February 24, 2020. The 12 most recent are shown below.

The Purple Shell vs Chinatown

Chinatown runs 86% clean across 297 tracked restaurants — 245 clean, 22 mid, 19 cooked.

Against the 297 spots Cooked tracks in Chinatown, this one comes out cleaner than 14% of them.

Other spots in Chinatown

• ✓ Tora Ramen
  clean · September 26, 2025
• ✓ Lulu Green Cafe
  clean · January 30, 2026
• ✓ Cha Kung Fong
  clean · September 21, 2023
• ✓ Olga's Kafe
  clean · January 30, 2026
• ✓ Sheng Hu Produce
  clean · March 3, 2026
• ✓ Six West
  clean · January 28, 2025

See every restaurant inspection in Chinatown →

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 August 1, 2024. 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.