Policy

Editorial policy

This site asks operators to make decisions — sign a lease, budget a build-out, call a vendor — based on what it says. That obligates us to be specific about how we work.

Sourcing

• Every regulatory claim traces to a primary source: an agency document, an application form, a fee schedule, or statute. Secondary coverage is used to find things, not to establish them.
• Each guide publishes its source list with the URL and the date we last opened it.
• Where sources conflict, or where we could not obtain a current document, we say so on the page rather than picking whichever number looked right.

Review cadence

• Every guide carries a last verified date. That date changes only when a person re-opens the sources and confirms the content, not when we fix a typo.
• Licensing and fee content is re-checked at least annually, and whenever an agency announces a change. Fee schedules generally reset with the license year.
• Directory listings are re-verified periodically. A listing we cannot confirm is removed, not left up.

Being published by a supplier

Published by Dean Supply — supplying Cleveland kitchens since 1950. Dean Supply is a restaurant supply company that sells many of the things covered on this site. That is a conflict of interest, it is disclosed on every page, and these are the rules we work under because of it:

1. Alphabetical ordering, always. Position within a directory category is never sold, traded, or adjusted — not for Dean, not for anyone. It is trivially checkable on any category page, which is the point.
2. Competitors are listed on identical terms. Companies that sell directly against Dean appear in this directory with the same detail and the same treatment. We actively solicit them.
3. No rankings or ratings in the publisher's own categories. We will not publish “best supplier” lists, star ratings, or recommendations in any category Dean competes in. There is no version of that we could publish credibly, so we do not.
4. No cautionary copy about competitors. A listing says what a business does and who it suits. It does not say what to watch out for, what they are a worse fit for, or what to read before signing. Anything worth warning an operator about goes in the category checklist, where it applies to every business listed — ours included. A directory published by a supplier that hedges its competitors' entries and not its own is self-serving even when every individual sentence is accurate, and that is a thing you can check by reading any category page.
5. No pay-to-play, anywhere. We do not sell listings, placement, or coverage, and we take no affiliate commissions or referral fees from any vendor here.
6. Guides answer questions; they do not route to a cart. Regulatory content links to agencies. Where a guide mentions equipment or supplies, it does so because the requirement calls for it, not because someone sells it.

Links from this site to the publisher's store are marked as such in the page code, so search engines treat them as what they are rather than as independent endorsements.

If you find a page that breaks one of these rules, tell us. We would rather fix it and say we fixed it than have the rules be decorative.

The openings and closings tracker

A tracker entry records a status change and cites where we learned of it. Specific standards apply:

• Every row has at least one source. No entry is published on rumor.
• Confidence is labeled. "Reported" means a single source we have not independently confirmed. "Confirmed" means an agency record or direct contact with the business.
• Date precision is explicit. If we only know the month or the quarter, the row says so. We do not present an estimate as an exact date.
• Closures are handled carefully. Getting a closure wrong harms a business that is still open and still trying. When in doubt, we hold the entry.
• We do not speculate about causes. The tracker records what happened, not why we imagine it happened.
• A business's website is not a source. Where a business has its own site we link to it from its name, because a reader who found the row probably wants the menu and the hours. That link is a convenience. The source column is the citation, and the two never substitute for each other. We link the business's own site only — not a social profile, a delivery platform, or a landlord's tenant page.

Corrections

We correct errors quickly and visibly. If a correction changes the substance of a page, we note what changed and when. We do not quietly edit and pretend the error never happened.

Send corrections to corrections@clevelandfoodservice.com, or use the corrections page. Business owners who believe a directory listing or tracker entry is wrong get priority.

We aim to answer within two business days. Accountability for everything on this site sits with Dean Supply as publisher — there is no separate editorial company to point at, which is stated plainly on the about page. Everything above is a commitment made by the business that publishes it, and a response window you can hold us to.

Limits

Cleveland Foodservice Guide is not a licensing agency, a law firm, or a consultancy. Nothing here is legal advice. Requirements vary by address, by menu, and by what your inspector sees on the day. Always confirm with the agency named on the page.