TAMPA, FL. State inspectors walked into Cafe Artemisa on North Manhattan Avenue on July 27, 2026, and found food sourced from unknown or unapproved suppliers, meaning no one could trace where it came from or whether it had ever passed a federal safety inspection. That single violation, combined with nine others rated high-severity, was not enough to close the cafe. It remained open.
The inspection logged 10 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate violations in a single visit. No emergency closure order was issued.
What Inspectors Found
Inspectors flagged food contact surfaces as not properly cleaned or sanitized. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils that carry bacteria from one food to the next were among the concerns documented.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near food. That is not a paperwork problem. Mislabeled or misplaced chemicals can end up in food or on surfaces where food is prepared, causing acute poisoning that can be mistaken for a foodborne illness.
The inspector also documented inadequate shell stock identification records. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked. Without proper tags and records, there is no way to trace a contaminated batch if customers become sick.
Food was found not cooked to the required minimum temperature. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. The gap between what the thermometer reads and what the law requires is where outbreaks begin.
The cafe also had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. Elderly customers, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems face the highest risk from undercooked items, and without a posted advisory, they have no way to know they are ordering one.
What These Violations Mean
Food from an unapproved or unknown source is one of the hardest violations to walk back from a public health standpoint. When food bypasses USDA or FDA inspection channels, there is no chain of custody. If a customer gets sick, investigators cannot trace the product to its origin, cannot issue a recall, and cannot warn others who may have purchased the same item elsewhere. At Cafe Artemisa, that violation existed alongside undercooking, which means potentially contaminated food from an unverifiable source may also have been served without reaching a temperature that would kill pathogens.
The two handwashing violations documented here, inadequate handwashing and improper technique, are not redundant. The first means employees were not washing their hands when required. The second means that even when they did wash, the method was insufficient to remove pathogens. Together, they describe a kitchen where hands were a consistent contamination pathway throughout the workday.
The illness reporting violations compound every other risk. A written employee health policy exists so that a worker who wakes up with vomiting or diarrhea knows they are required to stay home or report to a manager before touching food. Without that policy in place at Cafe Artemisa, and with no documented system for employees to report symptoms, a sick worker had no formal barrier between their illness and the food they prepared.
Improperly maintained toilet facilities close the loop. Restrooms in disrepair discourage employees from washing their hands properly after using them. At a facility where inspectors already documented inadequate handwashing, the condition of the bathroom is not a minor infrastructure complaint.
The Longer Record
Cafe Artemisa: Recent Inspection History
Cafe Artemisa has 35 inspections on record and 411 total violations documented across its history. The July 2026 inspection was not an outlier. It was a repetition.
The February 2025 inspection also produced 10 high-severity violations. The July 2025 inspection produced 8. The December 2025 inspection produced 7. In August 2024, a single inspection found 12 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate ones, the highest single-visit count in the facility's recorded history. The cafe has never been emergency-closed.
Five of the eight most recent inspections on record produced 7 or more high-severity violations. The pattern does not show a facility struggling to correct isolated problems. It shows a facility that has been cited for serious violations across multiple consecutive inspection cycles without a sustained period of compliance.
The cafe has accumulated 411 violations across 35 inspections, an average of nearly 12 violations per visit. That average includes the lighter inspection results. The heavier ones pull well above it.
On July 27, 2026, state inspectors documented 10 high-severity violations at Cafe Artemisa on North Manhattan Avenue, including food from an unverifiable source, undercooking, improperly stored toxic chemicals, and no system for sick employees to report their illness before handling food. The cafe was not closed.
