GROVELAND, FL. A state inspector visited Butcher Block Kitchen at 262 E. Orange St. on June 2 and found that the facility was not following parasite destruction procedures, a violation that means customers eating fish, pork, or wild game may have been exposed to live parasites, including Anisakis worms and tapeworm, that proper freezing or cooking protocols are specifically designed to eliminate.
That was one of nine high-severity violations documented in a single visit. The facility was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The nine high-severity citations covered nearly every stage of food preparation and handling. Inspectors found food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, which at a butcher shop handling raw poultry, pork, and fish represents a direct undercooking risk. Food contact surfaces, including the cutting boards and prep surfaces central to a butchery operation, were not properly cleaned or sanitized.
Two separate violations involved toxic chemicals: one for improper storage or labeling, another for improper identification, storage, or use of toxic substances. Both were flagged as high-severity on the same visit.
The facility also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, meaning customers with no warning chose items without knowing the risk. Time as a public health control was not properly applied, a citation issued when food is left in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, without adequate documentation or protocols to track how long it has been there.
On the intermediate side, inspectors cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal, inadequate cooling and cold-holding equipment, improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, improper sanitizer concentration, and wiping cloths used in ways that spread contamination rather than contain it.
What These Violations Mean
Parasite destruction is not an optional step for a facility handling fish, pork, or wild game. Without proper freezing protocols, parasites including Anisakis roundworms and tapeworm larvae survive in the flesh and pass directly to the customer. The violation at Butcher Block Kitchen on June 2 means those procedures were not being followed.
The undercooking violation compounds that risk. Salmonella in poultry is not destroyed below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. At a butcher shop that prepares as well as sells meat, the failure to reach required cooking temperatures is a direct exposure pathway.
The two chemical violations together are notable. Improper storage of toxic substances near food can cause acute poisoning through contamination or mislabeling. When a facility receives two separate citations in the same category on the same visit, it suggests the problem was not a single misplaced bottle.
The illness-reporting violation is the one that operates invisibly. When employees are not required to report symptoms, a norovirus-infected worker can handle food throughout an entire shift, spreading illness to every customer served that day, without any visible sign that anything is wrong.
The Longer Record
The June 2 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Butcher Block Kitchen has been inspected 29 times, accumulating 233 total violations across that history.
The eight most recent inspections before June 2 each produced high-severity citations. The October 1, 2025 visit yielded 10 high-severity and 4 intermediate violations. The December 26, 2024 visit produced 8 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The April 14, 2025 visit matched this year's count almost exactly, with 9 high-severity and 1 intermediate violations.
The pattern does not show a facility struggling with occasional lapses. It shows a facility that has produced between 4 and 11 high-severity violations on every inspected visit going back to at least 2022, when a single inspection in December that year found 11 high-severity and 6 intermediate violations, the worst single-visit total in the records reviewed.
Butcher Block Kitchen has never been emergency-closed. Not after the December 2022 inspection with 17 combined violations. Not after October 2025. Not after June 2, 2026, when nine separate high-severity violations, including parasite procedures, undercooking, toxic chemical storage, and an employee illness-reporting failure, were documented in a single visit.
As of the June 2 inspection, the facility remained open.