Philadelphia’s food-safety rules aren’t new. Why does it seem like restaurant inspections have intensified lately?

For the last eight years, Fridays at Stargazy on East Passyunk Avenue meant fish and chips, a weekly tribute to chef-owner Sam Jacobson’s East London roots.

That ended last month, when a city health inspection forced the English pie and mash shop to discontinue the special.

Stargazy had been cited twice in 2024 for operating its electric double countertop fryer without proper mechanical ventilation. But on Aug. 14, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health went further, citing the fryers as “unapproved” equipment and requiring Jacobson to submit plans for review before they could be used again. Translation: He’d need to install ventilation for his fryer if he wanted to continue slinging fish and chips.

For restaurant owners, the consequences of an inspection can extend beyond whatever corrective action the city requires. Reports of closures, cease-operations orders, or serious violations — especially at popular restaurants — often spread on social media, where the conversation often turns to claims that enforcement is unfair or not uniformly applied.

The health department disputes that contention, saying that there is no crackdown.

It’s in the process of rolling out a new Food Safety Inspection Guide, but while the format of the guide has been streamlined, the department said the underlying rules have not changed.

Last month at Heavy Metal Sausage Co. in South Philadelphia, a health inspector ordered owners Patrick Alfiero and Melissa Pellegrino to remove the shop’s eight indoor seats and stop preparing food in the basement. Inspectors determined that neither activity was consistent with the establishment’s plan review, approved in 2022.

The order halted Heavy Metal’s prix-fixe trattoria dinners, which Pellegrino said accounted for more than half of the business’ revenue. The shop has remained open for daytime takeout.

Heavy Metal had passed previous inspections, including one four months earlier, and its owners told The Inquirer the operation had not changed between the two visits.

Health officials interviewed this month said the differing outcomes illustrate a basic principle of the inspection system: Each inspection reflects only a snapshot of what an inspector observes.

During the April inspection, the department said, the inspector did not observe indoor dining or food preparation in the basement. On Aug. 21, both were taking place and could be cited.

More broadly, officials said, the absence of a citation during an earlier inspection should not be interpreted as approval of a practice.

At Stargazy, the record is different. The fryer had been cited before.

Jacobson was in England when the sanitarian — as the inspectors are known — arrived at Stargazy on the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 14. It was the same sanitarian who had cited the fryer during two inspections in 2024.

“I did look back at sales reports for the day of the April 5, 2024, inspection and we had a good fish day — so the fryer was definitely on and in plain sight,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson acknowledges that the inspector told him in 2024 that the fryers were “not approved.” That point is noted on the reports. But Jacobson said he did not understand that to mean he had to stop using them.

The Health Department gave a different account to The Inquirer this month. Officials said Jacobson was verbally instructed in 2024 not to use the fryers because they lacked mechanical ventilation.

When the sanitarian found the same fryer still in use at its next inspection more than two years later, the department said, Jacobson was told to install mechanical ventilation, which would require a plan review — a lengthy process. This time, Jacobson removed the fryer in response. (Historically, the health department does not levy fines, preferring that businesses correct violations.)

Jacobson said Stargazy had never undergone a plan review when he opened in 2015 after taking over an existing bakery. He said a city employee advised him at the time to treat the opening as a change of ownership, and the restaurant passed its preopening inspection.

“We never did any alterations or construction before opening,” Jacobson said. “I simply took over the lease of an existing bakery, gave it a lick of paint and some other cosmetic touches and opened up.”

Besides the fryer, he said the restaurant’s only substantive changes were moving the counter in 2019 to create more room in the dining room and installing a customer hand sink during the pandemic at the city’s direction.

Health officials say the city’s underlying standards, based on the Philadelphia Food Code, have not changed recently. The department’s current inspection report guidelines date to 2019, while the code itself dates to 2008.

Sanitarians have not received new instructions to interpret the code differently, the department said. The department said it has committed significant resources to uniformity training, intended to ensure that every inspector reviews the same conditions in the same way in all food businesses.

Supervisors and managers also review inspection reports, and sanitarians are not supposed to exercise individual discretion in deciding whether a condition violates the food code.

The new Food Safety Inspection Guide supports the department’s position that the underlying food-safety requirements are not new.

Deputy Health Commissioner Dawn Kiesewetter said the guide has been under development for six or seven months with the Mayor’s Office of Policy Planning and Delivery, the Commerce Department, and business and community groups. It grew out of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s PHL Open for Business initiative, launched in April 2024 to simplify city permitting, licensing, and other requirements for businesses.

Food businesses were an early focus. When Open for Business was announced, city officials said food businesses averaged nearly 24 government approval steps to open and operate. The administration subsequently developed multilingual food-safety materials and other guidance for operators.

The Health Department said the inspection guide is still undergoing final review before being posted to the city’s website and formally announced, although copies have already circulated among industry and community partners.

The city aims to inspect every food establishment once a year but does not always meet that target, the department acknowledged. About 60 Health Department employees are authorized to inspect Philadelphia’s 10,427 food establishments, according to the department. Reinspections follow violations, while complaint inspections and investigations of possible foodborne illness take place as needed.

Staffing and complaint volume have remained relatively steady in recent years, officials said, while the number of food businesses remains below its pre-pandemic level.

Stargazy’s fryer was cited as a “new violation” in 2026, two years after its first citation. The department’s terminology on inspection reports can sometimes label a recurring violation as new. Health officials said that designation is automatically applied when more than a year has passed since the earlier violation.

Jacobson said it would not make financial sense for him to install the ventilation needed to resume frying. A permanent hood would require construction, he said, while a freestanding ventless system could cost more than $20,000.

Since removing the fryer, he is considering longer hours and fish-and-chips pop-ups elsewhere to replace some of the lost sales. On Fridays, he has been offering specials that do not require a fryer, including wild mushroom burrata toast.

The city says one purpose of the new guide is to reduce the likelihood of surprises during an inspection.

“The more they understand what they need to do, the more likely they’ll pass,” the Health Department said in a statement. “Our number one goal is to ensure that food businesses can stay open safely.”