FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. State inspectors walked into a Fort Lauderdale pizza shop on June 3 and found food that had not been cooked to required minimum temperatures, toxic chemicals stored improperly near food, and not a single written policy requiring sick employees to stay out of the kitchen. The restaurant stayed open.
The inspection of Coast to Coast Pizza Company on North Federal Highway turned up six high-severity violations and zero intermediate violations. Under Florida's inspection system, high-severity violations are those most directly linked to foodborne illness outbreaks. None of the six triggered an emergency closure order.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooking violation is among the most direct hazards in food service. Inspectors cited the restaurant for failing to reach required minimum cooking temperatures, the threshold that kills pathogens including Salmonella in poultry.
The chemical storage violation compounds the picture. Toxic substances found improperly stored or labeled near food create a contamination route that has nothing to do with how carefully a cook handles raw ingredients.
Shellfish records were also flagged. The citation for inadequate shell stock identification means inspectors could not confirm where the restaurant's shellfish came from or trace it back to a certified harvest source.
The Violations in Plain Language
The two illness-related citations together describe a kitchen with no structural barrier against a sick worker spreading disease to customers. There was no written employee health policy, and separately, an employee was found not reporting illness symptoms. These are not paperwork failures.
Norovirus, the most common cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurants, spreads almost entirely through infected food workers who continue to handle food while symptomatic. A written health policy that requires workers to report symptoms and stay home is one of the few practical tools that interrupts that chain. Coast to Coast had neither the policy nor the reporting practice in place on June 3.
The food condition violation adds another layer. Food documented as being in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated puts customers at risk before it even reaches a grill.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no health policy and an employee not reporting symptoms is the scenario public health officials describe as an outbreak's starting point. A single Norovirus-infected worker can contaminate food served to dozens of customers in a single shift. The Centers for Disease Control estimates Norovirus causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and restaurant workers are a primary transmission route.
The undercooking citation means food, potentially including poultry, was served to customers without reaching the temperature required to kill Salmonella. Salmonella causes an estimated 1.35 million infections annually in the U.S. The required internal temperature for poultry is 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Below that threshold, the pathogen survives.
The shellfish traceability failure is a separate category of risk. Oysters, clams, and mussels are frequently eaten raw or lightly cooked, and without documentation linking them to a certified harvest source, there is no way to identify the origin if a customer becomes ill. That traceability gap matters most in the hours after someone gets sick, when public health investigators need to act quickly.
Improperly stored toxic chemicals near food present a risk that can materialize through accidental contamination or mislabeling. Chemical poisoning from restaurant food is rare but acute when it occurs, and the cause is often not identified until a pattern of illness emerges.
The Longer Record
June 3 was not an aberration. The inspection record at Coast to Coast Pizza going back to December 2023 shows high-severity violations cited at nearly every visit. Inspectors found three high-severity violations in December 2023, four in January 2025, six in March 2025, four in November 2025, and one more in March 2026, before the six documented in June.
The March 2025 inspection produced the same total as June 3: six high-severity violations and zero intermediate violations. That inspection was followed the same day by a second visit that found nothing. The pattern suggests corrections were made quickly enough to pass a callback, then conditions deteriorated again.
Across 14 inspections on record, the restaurant has accumulated 50 total violations. It has never been emergency-closed.
The most recent inspection before June 3 was in March 2026, when inspectors found one high-severity and two intermediate violations. The jump to six high-severity citations three months later, with no emergency closure ordered, is the current state of enforcement at 656 North Federal Highway.
The doors were open on June 3. They remained open after the inspector left.