OCALA, FL. State inspectors visiting Las Margaritas Mexican Restaurant and Gallery on SW College Road on July 14 found that the restaurant was serving food from unapproved or unknown sources, a violation that means inspectors could not confirm whether the food had ever passed a federal safety inspection.
That was one of ten high-severity violations documented in a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious a restaurant can receive. When food arrives outside the approved supply chain, there is no way to trace it back to a specific farm, processor, or distributor if customers become ill. There is also no guarantee the product was ever inspected for contamination.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for failing to follow parasite destruction procedures, and for inadequate shell stock identification records. Those two violations together paint a picture of a kitchen handling raw and lightly cooked proteins, including fish and shellfish, without the documentation or protocols required to confirm those foods were safe before they reached a plate.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. That violation sits alongside the food sourcing and parasite citations as one of the three high-severity findings with the most direct potential to harm a customer who had no way of knowing anything was wrong.
The remaining high-severity violations covered handwashing failures at two levels: employees not washing hands adequately, and employees using improper technique when they did wash. Inspectors also cited time as a public health control not properly used, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, and no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items.
Seven intermediate violations accompanied the ten high-severity findings. Those included multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, inadequate cooling and cold holding equipment, single-use items being reused, improper use of wiping cloths, inadequate ventilation and lighting, inadequate toilet facilities, and equipment in poor repair.
What These Violations Mean
The food from unapproved sources violation carries a specific and serious consequence: if a customer gets sick, investigators cannot trace the illness back through the supply chain. Every approved food distributor in Florida maintains records that allow the state to identify a contaminated batch, pull it from circulation, and notify other restaurants. Food from an unknown source breaks that chain entirely.
Parasite destruction is not optional for certain proteins. Fish served raw or undercooked, and pork prepared below recommended temperatures, must be frozen to specific temperatures for specific durations to kill parasites including Anisakis in fish and Trichinella in pork. When that step is skipped or undocumented, the parasite reaches the customer. The violation at Las Margaritas was not about a single dish, it was about the absence of a procedure.
The two handwashing violations compounding each other is significant. Inadequate handwashing and improper technique are separate citations because they represent different failure points. The first means employees were not washing hands when required. The second means that even when they did wash, the method left pathogens on their hands. Both violations present at the same inspection means the kitchen's primary defense against spreading illness to food was compromised at multiple points simultaneously.
Improperly stored or labeled chemicals near food preparation areas can cause acute poisoning without any warning signs. A customer eating a meal prepared in a kitchen where chemicals are not properly segregated from food has no way to detect contamination in what they are served.
The Longer Record
Las Margaritas: Recent Inspection History
The July 14 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Las Margaritas has accumulated 264 total violations across 31 inspections on file. The restaurant has reached 10 high-severity violations in a single inspection before, most recently in April 2025, when inspectors documented an identical count of 10 high-severity and 4 intermediate violations.
The pattern across recent inspections is consistent: a high-violation inspection is followed by a passing re-inspection, then violations climb again. In December 2025, inspectors found 9 high-severity violations. Three months before that, in September 2025, the restaurant passed with zero violations at all. One week before that passing grade, inspectors had found 5 high-severity violations.
Las Margaritas has never been emergency-closed in its 31 inspections on record. The July 14 visit, which documented food from unapproved sources, missing parasite destruction procedures, compromised handwashing at multiple levels, and improperly stored chemicals, did not change that.
The restaurant was open for business the following day.
