MinukuNot legal advice. This is general information. Local (city or county) health departments can have stricter rules than the state. Check with your local health department.
What Ohio's food code requires
The restaurant's person in charge must keep people its operation doesn't need out of its food prep, storage and dishwashing areas. Delivery and maintenance people who do go in have to follow the food code.
Persons unnecessary to the food service operation or retail food establishment are not allowed in the food preparation, food storage, or warewashing areas, except that brief visits and tours may be authorized by the person in charge if steps are taken to ensure that exposed food; clean equipment, utensils, and linens; and unwrapped single-service and single-use articles are protected from contaminationOAC 3717-1-02.4
Employees and other persons such as delivery and maintenance persons and pesticide applicators entering the food preparation, food storage, and warewashing areas comply with this chapterOAC 3717-1-02.4
- What it means
- Ohio's code puts this duty on the restaurant's person in charge, not on the driver. It has no rule aimed at delivery drivers themselves. ORC 3717.01(H) defines a "food delivery sales operation" involving delivery "by a person other than an employee" but says nothing about preparation. Note that OAC 3717-1-03.2(C) concerns separating raw animal foods from ready-to-eat foods, not drink preparation, and that 3717-1-02.4(C) does not contain the word "visitors."
- Food code
- FDA 2022 per FDA (rule text names no edition); eff. Sept 5, 2024 (ORC ch. 3717)
- Food handler card
- No card for ordinary employees; Level One PIC certification per shift (OAC 3701-21-25); manager certification for risk levels III–IV (3717-1-02.4(A)(3))
- Sources
- Last verified
- October 26, 2026
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Also: Why it matters to the customer · Isn't the lobby fountain self-serve? · What to do if a restaurant asks you to make the drink · What DoorDash's own terms say · What the restaurant promised DoorDash · Who's liable if something goes wrong?
Not legal advice. This is general information. Local (city or county) health departments can have stricter rules than the state. Check with your local health department. Last verified October 26, 2026.
Put together by a Dasher who builds Minuku, an offer checker for DoorDash on Android. Get it on Google Play