Today’s Birmingham Post ran a story about a new commercial kitchen hygiene rating scheme called Scores on the Door, where restaurants, diners, canteens and even mobile kitchens are given a rating of 0-5 stars. The story focussed on those places with a 0 rating, and ran a bit of counterpoint from some of the businesses concerned. At least one felt that the rating was erroneous.
The Scores on the Door rating scheme is apparently nationwide, and is set up to list places based on a variety of criteria. It lists 158 0-rated kitchens in Birmingham. It provides a map for each one, but doesn’t show the entire group. So I copied the list, did a bit of work on it, then ran it through Batch GeoCoder. The result is a geographical distribution that doesn’t reveal any distinct concentrations of poorly-rated kitchens. There are some blankspots of interest, such as Hall Green and Kingstanding - which might mean there are no restaurants, or that those areas have higher quality kitchens than elsewhere.
But what struck me most was the number of well known or favourite eateries on the list: Mr Egg, Canal Side Cafe Gas Street, K2 Restaurant, and The Sunflower Lounge. The Canalside Cafe being one of my favourites. On that basis I’m wondering what criteria are used in rating the kitchens, and whether there are things I’d disregard one way or another.
I wish the Scores on the Door people would provide the complete dataset — or subsets thereof — via the website, so that mashups would be easier. I may go back to get each of the higher rankings and pass those through Batch GeoCoder as well.
Post a Comment