Zaku

• resultFail
• critical violations2
• last inspectedAugust 3, 2026 →
• address520 Columbus Av, Roxbury 02118

Is Zaku clean?

Zaku is currently Fail from Boston Inspectional Services, Health Division, from an inspection on August 3, 2026. Inspectors wrote up 2 critical violations — the kind most directly linked to foodborne illness. On Cooked's ladder that reads cooked 🪳.

What did inspectors find at Zaku?

These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on August 3, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.

• ⚠️System Maintained in Good Repair (C)
• ⚠️(A) (B) and (C)(1) (4)-(16) Demonstration (Pf)
• ⚠️Food Storage Containers Identified with Common Name of Food (C)
• ⚠️Ready-To-Eat Time/Temperature Control for Safety Food Date Marking (Pf)
• ⚠️Floors Walls and Ceilings-Cleanability (C)
• ⚠️Manual and Mechanical Warewashing Equipment Chemical Sanitization-Temperature pH Concentration and Hardness (P)critical
• ⚠️Cleaning Ventilation Systems Nuisance and Discharge Prohibition (C)
• ⚠️Variances (C)
• ⚠️Anti-Choking
• ⚠️Conformance with Approved Procedures (P)critical

Zaku inspection and administrative history

Zaku has 57 inspections on record going back to October 22, 2015. The 12 most recent are shown below.

Featured in the Cooked? blog

Zaku vs South End

South End runs 83% clean across 677 tracked restaurants — 500 clean, 56 mid, 45 cooked.

Against the 677 spots Cooked tracks in South End, this one comes out cleaner than 1% of them.

Other spots in South End

• ✓ Pressed
  clean · June 15, 2017
• ✓ Almany Market
  clean · June 29, 2026
• ✓ Panera Bread
  clean · May 7, 2026
• ✓ Panera Bread
  clean · June 1, 2026
• ✓ Fomu
  clean · October 7, 2025
• ✓ Station News
  clean · August 14, 2026

See every restaurant inspection in South End →

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 3, 2026. 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.