ST. PETERSBURG, FL. Food at Big Catch at Salt Creek was not cooked to the minimum required temperature during a state inspection on August 12, 2026 — a violation that means pathogens like Salmonella, which survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit in poultry, could have reached customers' plates alive. Inspectors also found that toxic chemicals were improperly stored or labeled near food. The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
The August 12 inspection produced 9 high-severity violations and 6 intermediate violations, a total of 15 citations from a single visit to the 1500 2nd Street S location in St. Petersburg.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooking citation and the chemical storage violation were among the most acute dangers documented. Inspectors also cited the restaurant for food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized, a direct pathway for bacterial transfer between raw and ready-to-eat items.
Three of the nine high-severity violations addressed the workforce itself. Inspectors found no written employee health policy, found that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, and documented improper handwashing technique. Together, those three citations describe a kitchen where a sick employee had no formal obligation to report symptoms, no policy governing when to stay home, and was not washing hands correctly even when they tried.
The ninth high-severity citation: no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. At a seafood restaurant, that omission leaves customers with compromised immune systems, the elderly, pregnant women, and young children without the information they need to make an informed choice about what they order.
The six intermediate violations included multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, single-use items being reused, improper use of wiping cloths, inadequate ventilation and lighting, inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities, and equipment in poor repair.
What These Violations Mean
The cooking temperature violation is not a paperwork problem. Undercooking is a leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States, and the risk is specific: Salmonella in poultry requires an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit to be destroyed. Food served below that threshold at Big Catch at Salt Creek on August 12 carried a live pathogen risk to anyone who ate it.
The chemical storage citation compounds that risk. Improperly stored or unlabeled toxic chemicals near food can cause acute poisoning through direct contamination or mislabeling, a scenario that does not require a slow-developing infection, it can produce immediate harm.
The employee illness violations are what epidemiologists call outbreak enablers. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads most efficiently through food workers who do not know they are required to report symptoms or stay home. At Big Catch at Salt Creek on August 12, inspectors found no written policy requiring them to do either.
The improper handwashing citation makes that risk worse, not redundant. Studies show that incorrect technique, even when a worker goes through the motions of washing, leaves pathogens on hands at levels sufficient for transmission. At this restaurant, the infrastructure for preventing that transmission, a health policy, a reporting requirement, correct technique, was absent on all three counts simultaneously.
The Longer Record
The August 12 inspection was not an aberration. Big Catch at Salt Creek has 60 inspections on record and 660 total violations documented across its history, an average of 11 violations per inspection visit.
The restaurant has been emergency-closed three times. The most recent closure was triggered by the August 12 inspection itself, when rodent, roach, and fly activity was documented, though that closure does not appear in the violation list above. Inspectors returned on August 13 and found 6 high-severity and 4 intermediate violations, then returned again the same day and found 3 high and 1 intermediate. The restaurant was cleared to reopen on August 14, when inspectors found 1 high and 1 intermediate violation still on the books.
The second closure came in April 2025, also for roach and fly activity. Inspectors found 10 high-severity violations on April 23, 2025, the day of that closure, and 3 high violations on April 24, the day it reopened. A July 2025 inspection found 10 high-severity violations. A May 2026 inspection found 7 high-severity violations.
The pattern across eight documented inspections in the prior history is consistent: high-severity violation counts in the single digits or above, with no inspection showing a clean bill of health. The first emergency closure on record dates to November 2017, also for roach activity. The restaurant has been accumulating violations across nearly a decade of documented inspections.
Still Open
The August 12 inspection, with its 9 high-severity citations covering undercooking, chemical mishandling, a missing illness policy, unreported employee symptoms, and improper handwashing, did not result in an emergency closure order that day.
The closure that followed was tied to the pest activity documented separately. The 9 high-severity violations from that same visit were not, on their own, enough to shut the doors.
Big Catch at Salt Creek was serving customers on August 12, 2026, with no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods, and no written policy requiring a sick cook to say so.
