Richardson is the first city in Texas, and one of only 10 in the United States, to partner with Yelp and Socrata, a Seattle-based open data company, in an effort to get food safety scores in the hands of consumers. As of Friday, Dec. 18, health scores for more than 330 Richardson restaurants are viewable on Yelp through Yelp’s LIVES open data standard., a website and mobile app that hosts crowd-sourced restaurant reviews.

Yelp launched the LIVES data standard in partnership with Code for America in 2012 to get restaurant inspection information into the hands of consumers when they’re making a purchase decision. Socrata and Yelp partnered earlier this year to bring even more municipalities on board with the program.

"We are always looking for ways to improve access to information to help the people we serve," said Richardson Health Department Director Bill Alsup. "The LIVES program is a great method to easily provide food safety inspection information to anyone who may be interested.” 

“While restaurant health inspection information is already public, it can be hard to find,” said Luther Lowe, Yelp VP of Public Policy. “Every month millions of consumers use Yelp to find a place to eat, so it makes sense to bring this information to people where they’re already looking for it and can see it alongside reviews and photos from customers.” 

City employees worked with Socrata to put the restaurant scores into a format that is easy for app developers and business information websites like Yelp to use. When an inspector from the Richardson Health Department enters a restaurant’s food safety score into the City’s computer system, the information is automatically displayed on the right side of that restaurant’s Yelp page near the price range and hours of operation.