The next time Boston visitors and residents look up restaurant reviews online, they would be wise to also check out the Mayor’s Food Court, the city’s newly launched database of area restaurants and their most recent food violations.

The database, managed by Boston Inspectional Services Department, provides consumers with the most recent restaurant inspection reports and ranks the violations with a three-star system.

The ratings range from non-critical violations such as a lack of paper towels to critical violations dealing with food-borne illnesses.

Nancy Lo, project manager for the ISD’s digital conversion, said before the digitization of paper files, restaurant violation information could be outdated by three to four months.

“Now health inspectors have computer tablets that will upload real-time reports and specific comments online,” she said.

Food safety inspections at Boston restaurants are made at least once a year, unless there is a specific complaint about a restaurant, Lo said.

Though restaurant managers and owners admit health-code violations can hurt their business, some say making the information publicly available is important to ensure health standards.

Boston University Dining Services Marketing director Michelle Vitagliano said people can jump to conclusions when they do not know the circumstances of a health-code violation.

“A light bulb being out, a mop not in its proper place or a broken piece of equipment that has nothing to do with the food are all grounds for violation,” she said.

Dining halls at West Campus, Warren Towers, and Myles Standish Hall have violations listed on the website but most were categorized as non-critical.

Myles Standish Hall was cited for two critical food-borne illness violations and “a foul smell” in the back room in April. West Campus dining hall failed inspection Nov. 15 due to leaking hand sinks and broken thermometers on food-holding equipment.

“Safety and sanitation is taken quite seriously in our dining halls,” Vitagliano said. “When violations occur, corrective action is taken immediately.”

At the Sunset Grill ‘ Tap of Allston, inspectors found eight failing violations, including beef and rice on the buffet line below required holding temperature and dishwasher water temperature too low to sanitize properly.

“In the restaurant business there is always constant monitoring and training of our employees,” said Sunset Grill manager Dave Donahue. “The [ISD] website is good because it gives the public information, and helps us to become more aggressive about keeping up to standard.”

Grasshopper Vegetarian Restaurant owner Hoai Nguyen — whose restaurant was cited for rodents and roaches in June but has had no problems since then — said the new detailed information on the Mayor’s Food Court website may hurt his business, but it is in the public’s best interest.

“Every restaurant will now become cleaner and try harder to meet inspection standards,” said Hoai.