Posted: April 24th, 2009 - 10:27am by Katie Filion

Diners in Salt Lake county Utah can now view restaurant inspection scores online, reports the Salt Lake Tribune.

In its first morning online, Utahns flocked the restaurant site. Around noon, just a few hours after its launch, the link had already received 68,000 hits…

Patti Rasmussen, co-owner of Sandy’s Tin Roof Grill, whose restaurant received a three-star rank during the latest inspection, said,

"I'm a big believer in letting people know. If you've got something to hide, you're not going to like it. But if you are doing things correctly, you have nothing to fear."

Exactly. Those establishments confident in the safety of their food will not only embrace the website, but perhaps take it a step further and post the star rating at the premise.

The site allows consumers to search by restaurant name, address, city and through a new star rating system. The system ranks restaurants on a scale from one to four, based on how well each eatery fared compared to similar establishments. Restaurants that earn four stars are in the top 25 percent of their comparison group.