Long Beach Health Permits for Food Businesses: Plan Check, Fees, Inspections and Grades

Every food path in Long Beach ends at the same department, and the department’s rules are scattered across a plan-check guide headed “REVISED 2003”, a fee schedule, an inspection brochure and a closures page. This page joins them: what plan check covers and costs, what each kind of permit costs, how inspections work, and what the public can see afterward. The restaurant sequence around it, including the building and fire steps, is in How to Open a Restaurant in Long Beach; the section pillar, How to Open a Food Business in Long Beach, compares every path.

The short answer

Who issues the permit

The Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of Environmental Health, permits retail food facilities (“restaurants, markets, bakeries, bars, cafeterias … coffee shops, and convenience stores”), temporary facilities, cottage food, mobile food, MEHKOs and plan check¹. The Bureau is at 2525 Grand Avenue, Room 220, open Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., (562) 570-4132, [email protected]¹. An August 2026 city memo says it oversees “approximately 2,907 permitted food facilities” with “two plan reviewers”⁵.

Plan check

The Bureau reviews plans for restaurants, markets, bakeries, bars and taverns, school and hospital cafeterias, liquor and convenience stores, food trucks and carts, and cannabis businesses². The page gives “examples of when a food facility owner may need to submit plans”: a new health permit, new construction, remodeling or expansion, new or replaced equipment, a change of ownership of an inactive facility, and menu changes that need equipment or structural changes².

The Bureau’s guide (headed “REVISED 2003”) requires approval “before constructing, enlarging, altering, converting or remodeling any building for use as a food facility”, with “a minimum of (3) sets of detailed plans” at a “minimum scale of 1/4 inch = 1 ft”, and says “building permits for food facilities are not to be issued until plan approval has been obtained”³. It asks for a preliminary inspection when construction is “approximately 75% to 80% completed”, requested “no less than two weeks prior”, and the final inspection “no less than five (5) working days prior” to opening; final approval needs Building and Fire sign-off, working utilities and “a valid Public Health Permit prior to operating”³. The Bureau also posts construction guidelines for retail facilities, mobile facilities and commissaries, and guides on exhaust ventilation, water heater sizing and pest management².

Source:⁴, the Health fee schedule stamped June 16, 2026, in the fee year that ended September 30, 2026. The schedule also lists a HACCP plan review at $160 for the first 1.5 hours and $81 an hour after that⁴.

The annual permit

A permit is annual and priced by facility type. Restaurants are priced by seats and risk category; the schedule’s heading says each is “categorized by risk category”, and that “the risk assessment will determine the inspection frequency based on the public health risk associated with the food products served and the method of food preparation of the food facility”⁴. The schedule does not say what puts a menu in category 1 or 2.

Source:⁴, fee year ending September 30, 2026. Other annual permits on the same schedule:

Source:⁴. A reinspection after uncorrected violations is $437, a late payment adds 25 percent of the permit fee, a repeat-violation fee is $187 per documented repeated violation, and adding a partner to a permit is $130⁴.

Where to check The council approved updated city fee schedules effective October 1, 2026. The Bureau’s page still links the FY26 schedule⁷, and the city’s fee-schedules page lists the October 1, 2026 schedules for Building, Electrical, Fire, Mechanical, Plumbing and impact fees but no Health schedule⁶. The city’s August 2026 memo proposed Health fee adjustments in which “no individual fee is increasing to over $100 per month, and the average increase across all adjusted fees is kept to 39 percent”, with temporary food, non-profit, school and senior-feeding fees exempt⁵. The figures here are the schedule in force through September 30, 2026; call the Bureau for the current figure before you budget.

Inspections

The Bureau’s inspection brochure, which is undated and still gives the city’s old web address, says the food inspection program has “a target frequency of three routine inspections per year for all food facilities, with an optimal goal of four per year”⁸. Inspectors stress food temperature control, employee practices, sanitation and “verification that at least one person per facility has been certified in safe food handling practices”⁸. The fee schedule, stamped June 2026, is the more recent document, and it says only that higher-risk facilities get additional inspections⁴. Mobile vehicles with plumbing are inspected twice a year, in February and August, and prepackaged-food vehicles once a year, in August¹⁰.

The brochure describes an Inspection Summary Report: after each routine inspection a summary is “posted at all city food facilities in a location clearly visible to the public”⁸. Each violation is placed in a category, including food handling, food temperature, food storage, food source and labeling, water supply and temperature, and utensil washing and sanitizing, and every facility needing corrective action gets a reinspection; when the violations are corrected, a transparent “corrective action completed” sticker goes over the categories and stays until the next routine inspection⁸. The brochure says the system dates from January 1999 and counts “over 2,000” facilities, against the 2,907 in the 2026 memo, so ask the Bureau whether the summary format is unchanged⁵⁸.

Permitted mobile operators get a permit and a decal in a different color each year¹¹.

Grades and closures

The city’s pages describe no letter grade and no numeric score. What the Bureau publishes is the posted summary at the facility and a closures page. That page lists facilities closed in the past 12 months, with the date closed, the date reopened and the reason; it says a facility “remain[s] closed until the condition resulting in the closure has been corrected and verified by an Environmental Health Specialist”⁹. The conditions the page says lead to a closure: sewage contamination, lack of potable water, no hot water, unsafe food temperatures, ill employees, vermin infestation, the absence of a valid and current Public Health Permit, and “any other condition that would prohibit the facility from operating in a safe manner”⁹. The page does not provide a searchable inspection database.

What it adds up to

For a 30-seat, low-risk restaurant in a new build-out, the Health charges in the fee year that ended September 30, 2026 were plan check at $1,547 and a first-year permit of $1,136, a total of $2,683, before the building, fire and license charges covered on the restaurant page⁴. At high risk, the same restaurant paid $1,931 and $1,542, a total of $3,473⁴. A reinspection adds $437 each time⁴.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Long Beach have its own health department for restaurants?

Yes. The Bureau of Environmental Health permits restaurants, markets, bakeries, bars, coffee shops and other retail food facilities, and runs plan check¹.

How much is a restaurant health permit in Long Beach?

In the fee year that ended September 30, 2026, $880 to $2,176 a year, depending on seats and risk category⁴.

When is plan check required?

Plan check may be needed for a new health permit, new construction or remodeling, new or replaced equipment, a change of ownership of an inactive facility, and menu changes that need equipment or structural changes; the Bureau’s page gives these as “examples of when a food facility owner may need to submit plans”².

Does Long Beach give restaurants letter grades?

The city’s pages describe none. The Bureau describes a posted Inspection Summary Report and publishes a closures list⁸⁹.

How often are food facilities inspected?

The Bureau’s brochure gives a target of three routine inspections a year and a goal of four; the fee schedule says higher-risk facilities get additional inspections⁴⁸.

What closes a food facility in Long Beach?

Conditions such as sewage contamination, no potable or hot water, unsafe food temperatures, ill employees, vermin infestation or no valid Public Health Permit; it reopens after an Environmental Health Specialist verifies the correction⁹.

Did the fees change in October 2026?

The council approved updated city fee schedules effective October 1, 2026⁶. The Health Department’s page still links the FY26 mid-year schedule⁷, and the city’s memo proposed an average increase of 39 percent across adjusted Health fees⁵; the figures here are the schedule in force through September 30, 2026.

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