What permits do you need to open a coffee shop in Johnston County Nc?

Temporary Food Establishment Permit (Temporary Food Stand)

A business selling food at a festival, fair or other event in Johnston County needs a temporary food establishment permit from the Environmental Health Department for each event. The fee is set by statute, not by the county: G.S. 130A-248(d2) provides that a local health department 'shall charge each temporary food establishment' a fee of 'seventy-five dollars ($75.00) for each permit issued.' The county lists the same amount as 'Temporary Food Stand (Per Event) $75.00' as published on the Johnston County Environmental Health fee page (effective date shown: July 1, 2026). The Department's food service page lists temporary food service establishments and food stands among the facility types it inspects. A restaurant, coffee shop or food truck working an event pays this per-event fee in addition to whatever permits it already holds for its fixed or mobile operation. Contact: Johnston County Environmental Health, 309 E. Market Street, Smithfield, NC 27577, (919) 989-5180.

Certified Food Protection Manager

North Carolina charges nothing and issues nothing — an accredited programme certifies, and its exam fee is what you pay. The person in charge must hold it, with two narrow exemptions the base food code does not have: congregate nutrition sites, and risk category I establishments serving only non-hazardous foods. A normal restaurant is category II or higher and is not exempt. A training course alone will not do; the rule requires passing the accredited test. New permit holders get two hundred and ten days to comply. There is no statewide food handler card in North Carolina — the word handler does not appear anywhere in the sanitation rules — so rank-and-file food employees need no state credential. The five-year validity often quoted belongs to the certifying programme, not to North Carolina law, which sets no term at all.

Food Establishment Permit

One number for the whole state, which makes North Carolina unlike almost every other. The statute sets $120 a year and local boards of health are barred from adopting any rule about grading, operating or permitting food facilities, so no county charges its own annual restaurant fee — Wake County's schedule footnotes every permit line back to the $120 paid to the state. Seventy of every hundred and twenty dollars is passed back to the county health department that does the inspecting. The permit itself never expires while you trade; only the fee recurs, and it expires a year after an establishment closes. What a county may still charge is plan review, capped by statute at $250, and a mandatory $75 for a temporary event. Late payment adds $25 after forty-five days and reinstatement after a suspension costs $150. Chain and franchise plans approved by the state need no further local review.

Shared with other businesses in Johnston County Nc

• Food Establishment Plan Review — Johnston County Environmental Health Department, $250 one-time per plan review, county fee, as published on the Johnston County Environmental Health fee page (effective date shown: July 1, 2026) and on the county's plan review application; G.S. 130A-248(f) caps a local health department's plan review fee at $250.00, one-time, per new food service establishment project, before construction. Also required for restaurants and retail stores; what it involves is set out on the restaurants page.