ORLANDO, FL. An inspector visiting Brooklyn Pizza at 5681 Pershing Ave on September 14 found the restaurant was sourcing food from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means some of what customers ate that day had never passed through a USDA or FDA inspection checkpoint.
That was one of six high-severity violations documented during the visit. The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is the kind that inspectors treat as immediately serious. When a restaurant cannot document where its food came from, there is no chain of accountability if a customer gets sick.
Inspectors also found food in poor condition, described in state records as spoiled, contaminated, mislabeled, or adulterated. That violation sat alongside a citation for inadequate shell stock identification, meaning shellfish on the premises, high-risk foods often consumed raw or lightly cooked, could not be traced back to a certified harvester.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Five intermediate violations accompanied the six high-severity findings, including improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, and single-use items being reused.
What These Violations Mean
The food from unapproved sources violation is not a paperwork problem. Approved suppliers are required to meet USDA and FDA safety standards, which means their products are inspected for pathogens including Listeria and Salmonella before they reach a restaurant kitchen. Food that bypasses that system carries no such guarantee. If a customer gets sick, investigators have no supplier records to trace.
The absence of an employee health policy is a direct transmission risk. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, spreads when infected food workers handle food without any workplace rule requiring them to report symptoms or stay home. Without a written policy at Brooklyn Pizza, there was no documented mechanism to keep a sick employee out of the kitchen.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, combined with sanitizer failures documented in the intermediate violations, create compounding risk. Bacterial biofilms can establish on cutting boards and prep surfaces within 24 hours of inadequate cleaning. Sanitizer applied at the wrong concentration, whether too weak or too strong, either leaves pathogens alive or leaves chemical residue on surfaces that touch food.
The shellfish traceability violation carries its own weight. Oysters, clams, and mussels are filter feeders that concentrate pathogens from the water they grow in. Certified harvesters operate under federal monitoring programs designed to catch contaminated harvesting areas. Without shell stock tags, there is no way to verify the shellfish came from a monitored source.
The Longer Record
The September 14 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Brooklyn Pizza has been inspected 34 times and has accumulated 412 total violations across its history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The eight most recent inspections before September tell a consistent story. The May 2026 visit produced 6 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The February 2026 visit produced 4 high and 5 intermediate. Going back to September 2025, inspectors documented 7 high-severity violations in a single visit. The worst recent inspection on record, from August 2024, produced 9 high-severity and 6 intermediate violations.
Every one of those inspections found at least one high-severity violation. The lowest high-severity count in the eight-visit window was one, in April 2023. Every other visit found three or more.
The pattern across those visits includes repeat appearances of the same violation categories. Food sourcing, food contact surface sanitation, and employee health policy failures have appeared across multiple inspection cycles, not as isolated incidents but as recurring findings at the same address.
Open for Business
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when an inspector determines that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. The September 14 inspection at Brooklyn Pizza documented six conditions that state records classify as high-severity, including unapproved food sources, adulterated food, and improper sewage disposal.
The restaurant was not closed.
State records show Brooklyn Pizza has now logged high-severity violations in every one of its last eight documented inspections, spanning more than three years, without a single emergency closure order.
As of the September 14 inspection, it remained open.
