LEESBURG, FL. A state inspector walked into Old Time Dinner on West North Boulevard on September 10, 2026, and documented that food was not being cooked to required minimum temperatures, a violation that means pathogens like Salmonella can survive on a plate and reach a customer's table. The restaurant was not closed.
The inspection turned up 12 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate violations in a single visit, one of the heaviest single-day tallies the Leesburg diner has recorded across 55 inspections on file with the state.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooked food violation sits at the top of any serious inspection report. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and a single improperly cooked piece of chicken can put a healthy adult in the hospital.
Two separate handwashing violations were cited on the same visit: employees not washing hands adequately, and employees using improper technique when they did wash. Both were flagged as high-severity. That combination means the facility had no reliable barrier between contaminated hands and food going to customers.
Toxic chemicals were cited twice, once for improper storage and once for improper identification and use. Chemicals stored near or above food create a direct route to poisoning, and mislabeled containers compound the risk by making it impossible to identify the substance if something goes wrong.
The inspector also cited inadequate shell stock identification records, a violation tied to shellfish traceability. Without those records, there is no way to identify the harvest source if a customer gets sick from raw or lightly cooked oysters, clams, or mussels.
Improper sewage or wastewater disposal rounded out the intermediate violations alongside equipment in poor repair, inadequate ventilation, improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, and failing cold-holding equipment.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and employees not reporting illness symptoms is the documented starting point for most multi-victim foodborne illness outbreaks. Norovirus, the most common cause of foodborne illness in the United States, spreads person-to-person and through food prepared by infected workers. Without a written policy requiring sick workers to stay home and without a culture of actually reporting symptoms, a single ill employee can expose every customer served on a given shift.
The handwashing violations compound that risk immediately. Improper technique, meaning not enough soap, not enough time, or incomplete coverage, leaves live pathogens on hands even when a worker believes they have washed. At Old Time Dinner, inspectors flagged both the frequency and the method on the same visit.
The sewage disposal violation is in a different category. Raw sewage contains E. coli, Hepatitis A, and other pathogens capable of contaminating food prep surfaces, equipment, and food itself. Inadequate cold-holding equipment means food already prepared cannot be kept out of the temperature range, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, where bacteria multiply fastest.
Taken together, the September 10 inspection documented failures across nearly every layer of a kitchen's defenses: illness screening, hand hygiene, cooking temperatures, food contact surface sanitation, chemical storage, equipment, and waste disposal.
The Longer Record
Old Time Dinner: Recent Inspection History
Fifty-five inspections on record. Five hundred and ninety-eight total violations documented over the life of the file. Old Time Dinner has never been emergency-closed.
The September 10, 2026 inspection was not an anomaly. The April 29, 2026 visit produced an identical high-severity count: 12 high-severity violations, 4 intermediate. Between September 16 and September 19, 2025, four consecutive inspections each turned up between six and seven high-severity violations and three intermediate violations, a stretch that suggests the facility was cycling through corrections without addressing underlying conditions.
The pattern across the most recent inspections is consistent: high-severity counts in the double digits, brief apparent improvement, then a return to elevated numbers. The May 2026 visit showed only four high-severity violations, but the very next inspection on record, four months later, matched the worst single-day total in recent history.
Still Open
State inspectors documented 12 high-severity violations at Old Time Dinner on September 10, 2026, including food not cooked to safe temperatures, no policy for keeping sick workers out of the kitchen, chemicals stored improperly, and a sewage disposal problem. The restaurant served customers that day, and it remained open after the inspection closed.
The 598 violations accumulated across 55 inspections represent a record built over years. Not one of those inspections resulted in an emergency closure order.
