​Background and Objectives: The hygienic status of catering centers, especially in touristic areas, is of high importance due to the potential risks of communicable and non-communicable diseases to the clients who usually have no control over the process of catering in these centers. The aim of this study was to assess the hygienic status of Chelo-Kababi restaurants in Ardabil city, a touristic area in Iran.

Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study which was conducted in 2006, all of the 104    Chelo-Kababi restaurants in Ardabil city were evaluated using five checklists. The checklists were developed based on the fields of personal hygiene with 23 items, food and raw material hygiene with 13 items, services quality with 9 items, cooking tools and dishware hygiene with 17 items and environmental hygiene(cooking, eating and storing place) with 50 items. Checklists were designed based on the section 13 of the Iran’s Eating and Drinking Materials Act of 2001. Checklists were evaluated by 11 trained questioners. Data were analyzed using STATA 11 statistical software package.

Results: Ardabil city Kebab restaurants’ mean hygiene score was 62 on environmental hygiene, 53 on cooking tools and dishware hygiene, 39 on service quality, 33 on personal hygiene and 32 on food and raw material hygiene. Overall average was 44.

Conclusion: Kebab restaurants in Ardabil city did not have good hygienic status. Since Ardabil is a touristic area and many tourists have their meals at restaurants, effective interventions to improve hygienic status of these places are essential. Among these interventions, regular and targeted training and development of automated controlling methods such as informing the performance of these centers to the public are recommended.