Before you pick a place for dinner tonight, you can now check its health inspection score in seconds.

Columbus Times has launched a free Restaurant Inspection Scores page. It lets you look up the latest state health inspection for more than 800 restaurants, food trucks, cafeterias and other food businesses in Columbus and Muscogee County. It also has 4,931 inspections going back to 2022.

Scores come straight from the Georgia Department of Public Health's inspection records for Muscogee County, and the page updates every morning.

How to use it

1. Go to columbustimes.com/restaurants, or tap Restaurant Scores in the menu at the top of any Columbus Times page.
2. Type part of a restaurant's name ("Minnie"), a street ("Broadway") or a ZIP code (31909).
3. Tap a restaurant to see its page.

What you'll see

Each restaurant has its own page showing:

• Its latest score and letter grade, and whether that's up or down from the last inspection. For example, Country's Barbecue on Veterans Parkway earned a perfect 100 on Oct. 8.
• Every inspection since 2022, so you can tell a one-time slip from a pattern.
• What the inspector noted on recent inspections, in the inspector's own words, plus whether each problem was fixed on the spot.
• A link to the official state report for every inspection.
• Other scores in the same ZIP code, handy when you're deciding between nearby spots.

The main page also lists this week's inspections, this month's perfect 100s and the lowest scores of the past 90 days.

Clean kitchen and good food: diners' ratings from Google

A health score tells you how clean a kitchen is. It doesn't tell you whether the food is any good. So restaurant pages now also show each restaurant's Google star rating and number of reviews, right under its address, with a link to read the reviews on Google Maps.

• You'll see the stars on each restaurant's page, in search results and in the A-to-Z list.
• We match each restaurant to its Google listing by name and street address. If we can't be sure it's the same place, we leave the rating off rather than risk showing the wrong one. School cafeterias, day cares and hospitals don't get star ratings.
• Ratings are refreshed every month, and more restaurants are added every day.

Rate it yourself: Columbus Times readers' ratings

You can now rate any restaurant for your neighbors, right on its page.

1. Open the restaurant's page and find Rate [restaurant name].
2. Tap 1 to 5 stars, type your name (for example, "Keisha W.") and, if you like, a few words about what you ordered and how it was.
3. Tap Submit rating. No email or account needed.

Every rating is checked by Columbus Times before it appears. We remove spam, abuse and fake ratings, but we don't remove honest reviews because they're negative, and advertisers can't change ratings. Once a restaurant has at least three approved ratings, its Columbus Times readers' average appears next to its Google rating. One rating per reader per restaurant; rate a place again and your new rating replaces the old one.

Follow your favorite spot

On any restaurant's page, enter your email and tap Follow. We'll send you a short email whenever that restaurant gets a new inspection, with its score and what the inspector found. Georgia restaurants are usually inspected about twice a year, so you won't get many emails. Every email has a link to stop the alerts.

It's free, and you choose whether to also get the free daily Columbus Times email.

How Georgia grades restaurants

Restaurants that score a C or U get a follow-up inspection. Keep in mind that an inspection is a snapshot of one visit, and many problems are corrected while the inspector is still there.

Restaurant owners

Proud of a perfect score? Share your restaurant's page with your customers. If you think a score is wrong, contact Muscogee County Environmental Health at (706) 321-6170. Columbus Times publishes the state's records as they are and can't change scores.

Try it now: columbustimes.com/restaurants